SC issues notice to Centre, Assam government and NRC coordinator

Issuing identity cards to NRC-included people

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: The Supreme Court has issued notices to the Union government, Assam government and the state NRC coordinator, seeking to know their stand on the subject of issuing identity cards to those people whose names feature in the NRC final list published on August 31, 2019.

The Jammat Ulema-i-Hind and All Assam Minority Students' Union (AAMSU) had filed a writ petition before the apex court, seeking directions to the Centre and Registrar General of India (RGI) to complete the long-pending statutory steps required after publication of the final NRC. Their plea was that no action has been taken in the past six years to operationalize the NRC.

The petitioners' senior advocates, Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaisingh, said their plea centred around the issues of no identity cards for those included in the final NRC and the absence of a mechanism of appeal for the people whose names were left out. Kapil Sibal said, "It is a fundamental right of a citizen to obtain an identity card declaring their Indian citizenship during the NRC exercise."

The bench of Justices PS Narasimha and AS Chandurkar asked the petitioners why they approached the Supreme Court and not the High Court. The petitioners replied, "There are two main reasons why we came to the Supreme Court directly under provisions of Article 32. There's no dispute of questions of fact involved here. Nobody is disputing the fact that the exercise is complete. We are not disputing why I'm on the register or why I'm not. Now, surely I have a fundamental right under Article 32 to receive a national citizenship card. This is our reason for coming directly to this court. Apart from this, the NRC updating exercise from 2013 to 2019 was monitored by the Supreme Court."

The petitioners sought that directions be issued to the Union government and RGI to complete the process of NRC in Assam by taking the statutory steps, which have remained pending since August 2019.

Significantly, former state NRC coordinator Hitesh Dev Sharma had moved the Supreme Court for re-verification of the NRC, as there were large-scale errors in the NRC updating process.

On the other hand, the Assam government and AASU also want re-verification of 10% of names in the NRC for normal areas and 20% in the border areas of the state.

 Also Read: SC to Hear Plea for Assam NRC Re-Verification.