From Sandeep Sharma
GUWAHATI: The ministry of home affairs (MHA) on Tuesday misled the Lok Sabha by giving false information on issuance of “rejection slips” to the delisted citizens from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.
“Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 and the flood situation, the process of issuing rejection slips has been postponed,” Union minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai said replying to a written question from Congress MP Abdul Khaleque in the Lok Sabha session on Tuesday.
Khaleque wanted to know the reason behind delay in issuance of rejection slip even though the final list of NRC was announced on August 31, 2019.
Even as the RGI Sailesh had released the final draft of NRC on August, 31 2019, the draft is yet to be finalized due to which rejection slips could not be issued to the delisted persons.
It was not possible to issue rejection slips to those left out of the NTR without orders from the Supreme Court, an official associated with the NRC has said.
“Rejection slips to those left out of the final register have not started. There has to be an order from the Supreme Court which monitors the case. The state government had moved the Supreme Court seeking 20% sample re-verification of names included in draft NRC in districts bordering Bangladesh and a 10% sample re-verification of names in the remaining districts. The matter is sub-judice,” a senior official in NRC, who did not want to be named, told The Hills Times.
In the early part of this year, the RGI had asked the Assam government to complete updating the NRC by March 31 as there was no provision for continuing with the Rs 3.22 crore monthly funding for NRC work. RGI had also asked the office of the state co-coordinator to be shifted to a state government building and the staff to be redeployed when the NRC officials presumably required funds to continue the work.
The NRC official said that RGI was yet to notify the NRC. “The ministry of home affairs in its affidavit filed on January 29, 2020, has submitted to the Supreme Court that any person, not satisfied with the outcome of the decision of the claims and objects, may file an appeal before the Foreigners Tribunal, without waiting for publication of the final NRC by the Registrar General of Citizens Registration.
However, the Supreme Court has not given any order on this suggestion. Even those moving the tribunal within 120 days of getting a rejection slip will have to suffer from a time lag if the same is issued now,” the NRC official said.
NRC coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma in his affidavit in the Supreme Court on May 11 said, “The RGI is also silent on the final publication of the NRC for which it is the only authority to take action and till date the final NRC has not been published by the RGI as per Clause 7 of the Citizenship (registration of citizens and issue of national identity cards) Rules, 2003. The RGI is the highest authority under whose direction NRC updating has been taken up and is the only statutory authority empowered to take any decision on correction/rectification of anomalies if it is felt necessary.”
Responding to Khaleque’s questions, the Union minister also said a total of nine gazette notifications, the last being on July 31 2019, have been published by the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.
He said several communications and instructions have been sent to the state coordinator for complying with the orders of the Supreme Court with regard to the disposal of claims and objections to publication of lists of inclusions and exclusions in NRC. Letters were also issued for the completion of pending work as per the approved standard operating procedure (SOP) and complying with the directions issued by the Supreme Court with the deadline fixed.
Khaleque also wanted to know about the communication and instruction sent by the Registrar General of Citizen Registrar of India to the state coordinator NRC regarding winding up the process of NRC Assam.
