Assam NRC state coordinator Hitesh Sarma has filed a petition in Supreme Court, urging the top court to pass appropriate directions for a “complete, comprehensive and time-bound re-verification” of the NRC published in 2019.
The development came days after Assam’s new chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that there is a need for reverification of certain names included in the NRC.
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“Regarding the NRC, our position is very clear. In border districts, we want a re-examination of 20% names included, and in other districts, that of 10% names,” Sarma said.
NRC coordinator Sarma in his application said that there were numerous anomalies in the document, which has led to ineligible persons being included in the list.
“…several serious, fundamental and substantial errors have crept into the process of updating NRC in Assam. This has vitiated the entire exercise and the present draft and supplementary list for inclusion and exclusion of NRC that has been published is not free from errors. Thus, the draft NRC needs to be revisited by ordering a comprehensive and time bound re-verification of the same,” Sarma said in his plea.
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He has appealed to the Supreme Court that the re-verification is done under the supervision of a monitoring committee in respective districts.
Sarma suggested that the committee may be represented by the district judge, district magistrate and police chief concerned.
Around 19 lakh people were excluded from the final NRC, which was published in August, 2019 under direct supervision of the Supreme Court.
Coordinator Sarma, however, said that the NRC published in 2019 was not ‘final’. “The final NRC is yet to be published by the RGI [Registrar General of India] till date…. The rejection slips will be issued against proper rejection orders after the final publication NRC,” he said in the petition .
Sarma further said that the anomalies were communicated to the RGI “several times”, “but no decision has been taken by the RGI on the matter”.