Upamanyu Hazarika Slams Government Plea for Re-Verification of NRC as “Drama”

Upamanyu Hazarika

Guwahati, July 26, 2019:

Senior advocate Upamanyu Hazarika on Friday categorically criticized the government and said that the rejection by the Supreme Court of the plea for re-verification of National Register of Citizens (NRC) by the Central and State Government is no surprise.

Speaking on the matter, Upamanyu Hazarika said, “There is neither any fact nor any instance of discrepancy in the NRC which should justify the plea for re-verification. Courts pass orders on the basis of the facts and circumstances pleaded before them in support of the prayer, but there being no such fact the rejection comes as no surprise.”

Hazarika added, “The very fact that the Government slept over this issue for the last one year, filed applications without any foundation for the plea for re-verification with less than a month to go before the publication of the Final NRC demonstrates that this entire exercise was only to beguile and fool the public.”

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“We had on 26th of August, 2018 submitted a detailed representation on the deficiencies and discrepancies in the NRC namely; that the exclusion of 40 lakh in the draft list was far short of the estimated 80 lakh infiltrators in Assam, the exclusion in the border district being 7.5% was far less than the state average of 12.15%, the inclusion of large number of declared foreigners and their family members, the failure of the administrative process in including those persons in NRC who had through the judicial process been declared foreigners, the inclusion of large numbers in border districts on the basis field verification reports which did not verify documents but included persons on basis of statements of three witnesses (violation of standard operating procedure), persons forging legacy data, inclusions on the basis of village headman of villages which came into existence after 1971, large number of personnel deployed in the NRC process who themselves were excluded from the draft list (some even being declared foreigners) etc,” he further added.

The senior advocate mentioned that these facts were derived from Government personnel and from official records available with the State and the Central Government. To file an application without these facts in support would render the application futile and which has happened.

Moreover, Upamanyu Hazarika turned down heavily and said, “the entire ‘drama’ of seeking re-verification is only an eyewash to assuage the sentiments of the indigenous people and put the responsibility and blame upon the Supreme Court as the BJP is propagating in the social media. Since the publication of draft NRC, the government has been seeking inclusion of those excluded, but suddenly before the publication of final list file futile application before the court is only to fool the public.”

“This is consistent with the anti-indigenous stand of the Government before the Supreme Court because of the issues pending before the Supreme Court i.e. cut off date for grant of citizenship or grant of citizenship birth to children born of foreigners etc, the Government have taken a stand in favour of the immigrants and against the interests of the indigenous citizens,” Upamanyu Hazarika mentioned.