SC rejects plea to re-verify, reopen Assam NRC data

Guwahati: In a significant order, the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a plea to re-open and re-verify the National Register of Citizens(NRC) data while observing that the security aspects of the data involving NRC will get the same kind of protection as of Aadhaar.

A bench, comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justice R.F. Nariman also clarified that list of those excluded from the final Assam NRC will be published only online on August 31, while hard copies of the inclusions will be handed over to district offices concerned.

The top court said it has considered the provisions under Section 3 and 6(a) of the Citizenship Act as well as the prescribed rules under the Act. “The entire NRC exercise having been performed on aforesaid basis cannot now be ordered to be reopened.” The SC, which has been monitoring the process for six years, said that the NRC data should be kept “as secure as Aadhaar data”, as it asked the government to implement an appropriate regime for it.

The central government, Assam government and the NRC co-ordinator will also have limited access to the data, the court ordered.

This comes after a leak of the district-wise NRC data in Assam that was tabled in the state Assembly. This was from the draft final NRC published in July, last year.

The leak in August first week, after the top court said that the final NRC should be published on or by August 31, raised some questions over the exercise as it suggested that most people in areas bordering Bangladesh were included in the citizenship list, while many in districts dominated by the indigenous people were left out.