Assam Government has decided to file a fresh affidavit in the top court seeking 20 percent sample reverification of names mentioned in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the districts bordering Bangladesh and 10 percent sample reverification of names included in the remaining districts.
On September 20, Home Minister Amit Shah had a meeting with Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal and state Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma where they have decided to file a fresh affidavit in the court.
While addressing media houses, Assam Home Secretary Gyanendra Dev Tripathi stated, “We are readying the affidavit. As in earlier occasions our prayers were disallowed, we will seek review with a fresh petition.”
The state had moved the apex court earlier and the reverification plea was rejected. Monitored by the Supreme Court, National Register of Citizens is an exercise to eliminate the illegal immigrants from the country.
FM Sarma after the meeting stated that state government will raise the issue of 20 percent sample verification of the names included in NRC in the bordering districts of Bangladesh and 10 percent reverification of names in the rest of the districts.
The main petitioner in the NRC matter, Assam Public Works (APW) has sought 100 percent sample reverification of the NRC and has filed eight affidavits in connection to NRC.
“It’s more than a month since the meeting was held and what has stopped the government from filing the affidavit? This shows there are some elements within the government who do not want the affidavit to be filed. The government is not serious about filing the affidavit,” APW president Abhijeet Sharma.
He further added, “Just before the publication of NRC in July last year, the government had filed an affidavit seeking reverification, which was rejected. It is more than a year now, the government is silent. NRC has become lip service for the government.”
Sharma also drew the attention to the submissions made by NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela which signifies that 27 percent reverification is already done during the time period of claims and objection processes.
“If 27% reverification resulted in the exclusion of over 1 lakh names, imagine what will be the numbers if the rest 73% is reverified? There is a need for 100% reverification. This also reflects that quality of work was utterly poor. We were astonished as to how with this quality of work final NRC was allowed to be published on August 31 last year,” stated Sharma.
