Guwahati: The Centre has informed the Supreme Court that rejection slips have not yet been issued to around 19 lakh people excluded from Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), as the final register is yet to be formally notified.
In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the Registrar General of India (RGI) said the state NRC coordinator was still working on a security mechanism for preserving the NRC data.
The affidavit stated that the NRC data had not yet been handed over to the RGI. It said the final NRC could be formally notified only after the data was received by the Registrar General.
“Enactment of the security regime for NRC data by the state coordinator is in progress, and hence data has not been shared with the Registrar General of India (RGI),” the affidavit said.
The RGI further informed the court that the process of issuing rejection slips to those excluded from the NRC “has not been started yet” by the state NRC coordinator.
The final NRC was published in August 2019 after a lengthy verification process. Of the 3.29 crore applicants, 3.11 crore were included in the final list, while 19.07 lakh applicants were excluded.
The Supreme Court had earlier directed the state NRC coordinator to establish a mechanism for issuing rejection slips to excluded applicants. The slips are required to enable those left out of the final list to challenge their exclusion before Foreigners Tribunals.
In October 2020, the state NRC coordinator informed the RGI that rejection slips could be issued only after the final NRC was formally notified by the Registrar General.
The Supreme Court on Friday deferred further hearing of the matter to November 6 after the Assam government sought additional time to file its response.
The case relates to petitions filed by the Assam State Jamiat Ulama, All Assam Minority Students Union, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and others seeking the issuance of rejection slips to excluded applicants and NRC cards for those included in the final list.
The latest submission before the Supreme Court means that the formal notification of the 2019 final NRC and the subsequent process for excluded applicants remain pending.