Many discrepancies in NRC draft: Upamanyu Hazarika

Guwahati (Assam), Aug 26, 2018:

Supreme Court lawyer Upamanyu Hazarika on Sunday claimed that there were many lapses and discrepancies in the updated National Register of citizenship (NRC) the complete draft of which was published on July 31.

Addressing a press conference in Guwahati, he claimed that the names of a large number of foreigners were included in the draft.

"There are fundamental flaws at the institutional and verification level, resulting in inclusions of large numbers of foreigners including declared foreigners by tribunals (over the state) and thousands in Dhubri alone. The primary reason is reliance on field verification as the ultimate test for inclusion, even though documents show otherwise and where there has been largescale subversion…

“The classic case of Manowara Bewa, declared foreigner where the Supreme Court in her case decided on the admissibility of Panchayat certificates on 5.12.2017. Her application is processed and passes all tests of authentication of List-A, List-B documents, family tree verification including verification of her presence in the house by the visiting team when she is in the detention camp. But for an alert official, she would have been included in the NRC. Other declared foreigners have been included after passing all the tests,” Hazarika said.

He also said that field verification reports were not subjected to any quality-checks both at the initial and final stage which could have ensured corrections during the process.

The surprising fact is that none of these verification reports has been digitalised when all other documents have been and over-reliance on verification reports when primary statutory documents are non-compliant, he added.