The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed all residents in Assam to register and update their names with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), an exercise being conducted for the first time since NRC was first prepared for the country in 1951. The list has to be published by January 1, 2016.
The decision by the Court is sure to boost steps for identification of illegal migrants as the NRC requires residents in the State to produce evidence of their stay in the State prior to March 24, 1971. This cut off was fixed by the Assam Accord of 1985 entered between the Government of India, Assam Government and Assam movement groups as a benchmark to identify foreigners.
The order by a Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohington Nariman, has come at a time when the State Government led by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is finding it extremely difficult to convince his political opponents to join the NRC campaign. The issue has sparked massive protests with Opposition Parties alleging that the NRC update was a ploy to grant legitimate citizenship rights to illegal immigrants as the registration will rely on pre-1971 electoral roll as one of the evidence.
The Bench made it convenient for all the residents to present any form of evidence to link their stay in the State or even outside the State (within India) prior to March 24, 1971. It even set up a three-judge Committee headed by a former Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court AH Saikia and comprising two retired HC judges to oversee the NRC registration and report any instance of mischief to the apex court by October 6, the next date of hearing.
A related issue of whether progeny of illegal migrants are entitled to Indian citizenship as per Section 3 of the Citizenship Act was sent for decision to a larger bench of five judges. The Assam Government argued that such children deserve to be called citizens. The Centre, however, clarified that in case of Assam, this rule cannot be implemented.