The Gauhati High Court has asked the authorities of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to inquire into reports of inclusion of the name of an individual declared by foreigner by the Foreigners’ Tribunal in the NRC, which is being updated at the supervision of the Supreme Court.
The development came to the fore recently when the individual, Ali Ahmed filed a review petition in the Gauhati High Court seeking to reconsider the court’s earlier order to declare him as a foreigner. Ali Ahmed in his review petition cited that his name is included in the first draft of the NRC, which was released on December 31 last year.
It may be mentioned here that a Foreigners’ Tribunal in Assam’s Sivsagar district on November 22, 2011 declared Ali Ahmed as a foreigner. Although Ali Ahmed approached the Gauhati High Court and filed a writ petition against the Foreigners’ Tribunal’s ruling, the High court in 2017 rejection the writ petition and upheld the ruling of the Foreigners’ Tribunal.
Interestingly, the name of Ali Ahmed was included in the NRC under lahorighat constituency in Morigaon district of Central Assam.
The High court has expressed concern over the matter and said that it’s shocking as to how the name of an individual—despite declared as foreigner by a Foreigners’ Tribunal and the High Court upholding the tribunal’s ruling—entered the NRC.
In Assam, the NRC is aimed at identifying the number of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. While the NRC authorities have published a first draft of the NRC on December 31 last year, the Supreme Court has asked the Assam government to publish the final draft of the NRC on by June 30 this year.
The NRC authorities invited application from citizens for inclusion of their names in the NRC in 2015. While around 3.29 crore people of the state had applied for inclusion they also submitted close to 6.6 crore documents to support their citizenship claim. The exercise involves 45,000 government officials, 8000 workers on contractual basis and 10,000 to 15,000 people associating with NRC updation process at various levels