The Office of State Coordinator of National Register of Citizens (NRC) has filed an affidavit in the Gauhati High Court submitting that the names of more than 4,700 'Declared Foreigners', D (doubtful) voters, individuals whose citizenship issues pending in the foreigners' tribunals and their decedents were included in the final updated NRC published in 2019.
In its affidavit, the NRC authority has stated that the names of 4795 ineligible persons were detected after verification of the backgrounds of 10,199 individuals who were enrolled in the final NRC.
The Gauhati High Court had asked the State Coordinator of NRC on October last to submit an affidavit explaining how the names of some ineligible people crept into the final updated NRC. The directive was issued after the Court heard a petition by Rahima Begum, a resident of Mukalmua in Nalbari district. In 2019, a Foreigners' Tribunal (FT) had declared Rahima as a non-citizen; but she was among the applicants whose names were included in the final NRC. The NRC authorities also said that the names of 1032 ineligible persons were included in the NRC and that the data entry operators are responsible for the error. The NRC authority also made aware of the error to the RGI.
In the NRC update exercise, there were 3,30,27,661 applicants. Of them, while 3,11,21,004 were found eligible for entry into the final NRC, 19,06,657 were found ineligible for inclusion. The final NRC was published on August 31, 2019.
