NRC (National Register of Citizens) Applicants May Face Penalty

GUWAHATI: If any person provides false information or furnishes false particulars in the ongoing NRC (National Register of Citizens) claim-and-objection phase, he/she may be slapped with penalties – imprisonment or with fine or with both.

The NRC is being updated in the State based on the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. The Act has provisions of penalty for providing false information on citizenship of any people, knowingly. Section 17 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 says “any person, who, for the purpose of procuring anything to be done or not to be done under this Act, knowingly makes any representation which is false in a material particular shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with fines or with both”.

Going by this section of the Act, around 600 people had to be arrested on the charge of providing false information on their citizenship status for inclusion in the National Register of Citizens. Most of the arrests were made before the publication of the complete draft NRC.

With the phase of draft National Register of Citizens being over now, Section 17 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 seems to be a major problem to deal with for those who have provided false information during the ongoing claim-and-objection phase of NRC update.

The NRC awareness advertisement campaign by the NRC authority has also clearly mentioned the provision of penalty for false information.

Only three working days –Friday, Saturday and Monday – are to go for the claim-and-objection phase of the NRC update. So far around 27 lakh claims have been filed. The number of objections, on the other hand, is around 700. Hearing of claims and objections will start from February 15, 2019.

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