With Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) — which excluded 19.06 lakh people— in a limbo since its publication in August 2019, the state authorities are downsizing their staff strength. This has led to a legal suit by the laid off employees, who last month, petitioned the Gauhati High Court against their termination
On 31 May, Partha Majumdar, NRC state coordinator issued individual “release notices” to at least 121 contractual ‘circle project supervisors’ — most recruited in 2014 to oversee NRC-related work at the circle level — stating that their services were “no longer required”.
The letter informed them that they were put on notice for one month, within which they would have to handover all their assets and documents. “The Registrar General of India — which oversees the NRC exercise — has directed [us] that since there is no work at present, the manpower should be removed,” said an official at the NRC head office in Guwahati. “Since December of 2019, these people have only been idle – it has been a huge drain on the exchequer,” he said, adding that the NRC office had followed the “service regulations for NRC employees” while laying off the supervisors, which calls for a one-month notice period before termination of contract.
A 100 contractual employees have now approached the Gauhati High Court seeking a stay on the termination. On June 2, Justice Suman Shyam directed status quo be maintained with regard to the service of the petitioners.
The petitioners argued that the termination notices were “unwarranted” and that there were “no justifiable grounds” to dispense with their services. They also prayed for regularisation, citing Rule 11 of the of the Citizenship(Registration of Citizens and Issue of national identity Cards) Rules 2003, which mandated the NRC to be a “continuous process.”
The NRC — meant to be a list of bonafide Indians citizens in Assam — has been in a state of limbo, ever since it was published: the RGI has not notified it, the BJP-led Assam government has not accepted it either, and is pushing for the re-verification of at least 10 per cent of the names in all the districts. While 19 lakh of 3.3 crore applicants were excluded from the list, none have been issued a rejection slip—explaining reasons for their exclusion —so far
The petitioners have argued that this ambiguity gives them room to still be employed with the exercise. “The claims and rejection are still not fully complete and the individual rejection slips are still far from being out” the petition said.
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Barnam Deka, one of the hundred petitioners who was released earlier this month, said they were “betrayed” by the Assam government. “We worked round the clock because it was such an important exercise. And many times, we were given the assurances that we will be permanently absorbed into the project,” he alleged. Another worker, Dianur Islam said that it would be difficult to get jobs since “age was not on their side”. “We have given almost 9 years of our lives …most of us are above 40 now. It will be difficult for us to get job now, support our families,” he said.
The matter is listed for June 21.
