EXPLAINER

The story so far: A member of one of Assam’s functional 100 Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) had on May 10 written to Hitesh Dev Sarma, the State Coordinator of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), asking him to stop interfering in the lawful functioning of the tribunals. This letter was in response to Mr. Sarma’s April 18 letter to all the FT members not to treat the NRC as “final” while judging the nationality of a person suspected to be a non-citizen.

What is the NRC and when did it start?

The NRC was born out of independent India’s first census in 1951, entailing the transfer of data from the Census slips. All States were mandated to compile an NRC but it was done only in Assam. The intention behind such an exercise in Assam was to prepare a village-based inventory of residents in view of the resistance from the State — then undivided — to house post-Partition refugees. The fear of the indigenous people of being outnumbered by “illegal immigrants” during and after the 1971 Bangladesh War led to the Assam Agitation from 1979 to 1985. The demand for updating the 1951 NRC to eject foreigners from Assam was raised during the agitation.

The agitation ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in August 1985. The accord prescribed March 24, 1971, the eve of the Bangladesh War, as the cut-off date for detecting, detaining and deporting foreigners. This date was incorporated in the NRC updating exercise that began in 2014 under the supervision of the Supreme Court. People listed in the 1951 NRC and their descendants  had a comparatively smooth inclusion in the complete NRC draft published on August 31, 2019. This draft excluded 19.06-lakh out of the 3.3 crore people who had applied for inclusion.

What was the trigger of the debate over its status?

In 2021, Mr. Sarma submitted an affidavit at the Gauhati High Court, referring to the August 2019 NRC as a “supplementary list” and not the “final NRC” and sought a re-verification. In September that year, an FT member in southern Assam’s Karimganj district declared a doubtful migrant as Indian while observing that members of his family figured in the August 2019 list referred to as the “final NRC”. The list was also being referred to as final at various fora. On April 18, Mr. Sarma wrote to the FTs asking them not to depend on the NRC to adjudicate cases of citizenship. “It has been observed that while disposing of FT cases, various documents relating to NRC are being called from the District Registrar of Citizens Registration (Deputy Commissioner) and the State Coordinator, NRC. Assam. In this regard, I am to inform you that the Final NRC is yet to be published by the Registrar General of Citizens Registration,” he wrote. He also said that the NRC was erroneous due to wrong data entry and faulty process adopted in the updating exercise, as mentioned in the interlocutory application he had submitted before the Supreme Court, which is yet to hear the matter.

An FT member, choosing to be anonymous, insisted in his reply to Mr. Sarma on May 10 that the NRC published in accordance with relevant clauses of the Citizenship Rules of 2003, was final. The member also cited the official website where the NRC is mentioned as final and an August 2019 press communique by his predecessor, Prateek Hajela, “clearly mentioning” that the NRC was final. “The State Coordinator cannot propagate his wrong understanding of law, rules, notifications and orders of the Supreme Court about the finality of NRC… he should withdraw his letter and stop interfering in the lawful functioning of the Foreigners’ Tribunals which is beyond your jurisdiction and limits of power,” the FT member said. Judges, advocates and bureaucrats with judicial experience are appointed as members of the quasi-judicial body under the Foreigners’ Tribunal Act, 1941, and Foreigners Tribunal Order, 1964.

What, then, is the status of the NRC?

According to the State Coordinator, only the office of the Registrar General of India has the authority to publish the final NRC and a notification in this regard is yet to be issued. But the FT members, instead of looking at cases of people declared foreigners independently of the NRC, have been passing judgments by viewing the NRC as final, he said adding that Mr. Hajela’s statement was “misleading”. NRC officials also pointed out that the updating exercise still has some stages to go.

The next stage is the issuance of a rejection slip to each of the 19.06 lakh people excluded from the draft NRC. After receiving such a slip with an explanation of why he or she has been left out of the NRC, a person would have to approach the FT concerned within 120 days with documents to prove his or her citizenship. The FT would then adjudge the person as a ‘citizen’ or ‘foreigner’ for inclusion or rejection in the NRC.

What is the stand of the Assam government on the NRC?

The BJP-led Assam government has stuck to its stand that the NRC was erroneous. They have said that at least 20% of the enlisted names in districts bordering Bangladesh and 10% in the remaining districts need re-verification. The government has not accepted the list as final and has decided to approach the Supreme Court for a “corrected” NRC. The government, however, has decided to push for unfreezing the biometrics of 21 lakh people, collected during the updating exercise, to enable them to get Aadhaar cards, which can be locked again if a person is eventually marked as a non-citizen.