Maintain Aadhaar-like secrecy in final Assam NRC, Supreme Court tells government

The Supreme Court has asked the government to maintain Aadhaar-like secrecy with regard to the Assam National Registers of Citizens. This comes ahead of the release of the final NRC list, which is slated for August 31.

The previous deadline of July 31 was extended by the apex court till August 31. While extending the deadline, the top court had declined a request by the central and Assam governments to conduct another review of the names featuring in the list.

The plea for review was with regard to the names of citizens from border areas, comprising 20% of those featuring in the NRC draft. According to the request by the central and the state governments, there was possibility of some illegal refugees getting their names listed in collusion with NRC officials.

Responding the it, the Supreme Court had asked NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela to not complete the work in haste to meet the initial deadline of July 31. The court had also referred to media reports on disputes with regard to the list, saying such reports are not always wrong. The court had asked Hajela to ensure that there’s no discrepancy in the Assam NRC.

The Assam government had published the draft NRC published on July 30, 2018, which included the names of 2.9 crore of the state`s total 3.29 crore people, but excluded the names of over 40 lakh people due to some discrepancies. A massive controversy arose over the exclusion of 40 lakh people from the draft NRC.

On June 26, the state published an additional draft exclusion list of the NRC comprising the names of 102,462 persons. These people were initially included in the draft NRC published but subsequently found ineligible due to different reasons.

On July 19, the Centre had requested the apex court for an extension of the deadline for the final draft.