Are You Excluded From Assam's Final NRC List? Here's What You Can Do

The wait is over! The final National Register of Citizen (NRC) list is out. Names of over 3.11 crore individuals have been mentioned in the list. However, 19 lakh persons have been excluded. So, will India deport these people to Bangladesh? What happens to such individuals? Deportation or detention? Answers to these questions lies in number of options available for those excluded in final NRC list. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has said that those excluded from the list will be taken care of. The authorities have also confirmed that these 19 lakh individuals won’t face any arrest. Neither will these people labelled as ‘foreigners.’   

So, in case your name is not in final NRC list, here’s what you can do:

1.  Section 8 of the Schedule to the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards), 2003 gives rights to individuals to appeal against the exclusion.
2.  Any individual, whose name has not been included, needs to appeal to the Foreign Tribunals. The final deadline for this application are 120 days till December 31st this year.  All such cases must be resolved within six months.
3.  In case the individual is not satisfied with the decision of the Foreign Tribunal, she/he can challenge it in the High Court. If that also doesn’t help, one can always move the Supreme Court. The top court’s decision will be final.
4. All such individuals can also take help from the Assam government. Bonafide citizens can get help from the District legal Services Authorities.
5. The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), a non-governmental organisation, is also providing legal help.
6. CJP already has about 500 volunteers working across 19 districts. Nearly 100 of them were trained in the workshop held at Guwahati. 

The Supreme Court-monitored NRC update exercise published first draft in July last year. It should be noted that the final list, which was published today, can be termed as the supplementary list of the draft published in July last year. The 2019 list will contain the exact status of the people left out in the 2018 draft.

In the complete draft of the NRC, which was published in July last year, names of 40,07,707 people were excluded. It had which contained names of 2,89,83,677 eligible persons out of a total 3,29,91,384 applicants. Names of additional 1,02,462 persons were included in the list of excluded persons in June this year taking the total ineligible persons to 41,10,169 in the complete draft.

Though there have been some buzz over such an exercise across the country, at present, Assam is the only state that is carrying out the NRC policy. The citizens’ register was last updated in 1951. Assam had faced influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th Century.

HIGHLIGHTS

• All such individuals can also take help from the Assam government.
• Bonafide citizens can get help from District legal Services Authorities.
• CJP, a non-governmental organisation, is also providing legal help.