The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice in response to a PIL seeking directions to issue Aadhaar cards to those persons whose biometric details were locked during the process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) being updated in Assam.
The apex court sought a response from the Centre, the Assam government, the Registrar General of India (RGI) and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on or before May 17.
Filed by Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev, the petition said that non-issuance of Aadhaar cards affected the “ability to obtain the basic needs and amenities” as well as the “rights of the people to be able to have the quality of life as enshrined and protected under Article 19 and Article 21 of the Constitution of India”.
Lakhs of people, whose biometrics were recorded ahead of the publication of the NRC on August 31, 2019, have been unable to get their Aadhaar cards, and have been deprived of Aadhaar-linked benefits since, despite their names being on the NRC.
The plea said that 21 lakh people were “left in a lurch”, and sought relief for them. “It is submitted that while both the Final List and Supplementary List has been released and available in public domain, however the same is yet to be officially notified by the Registrar General of India. Due to non-publication of the List by the Registrar General of India, the 21 lakh people who had been included in the Supplementary list are left in a lurch as their biometrics have been frozen and are not being released for the purpose of enrolment of Aadhar number,” it stated.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Dev said that she had filed the petition in December 2021. “It was listed only in April. This entire episode is an anomaly. Even the state government wants a solution to this but the Government of India is dragging its feet,” said Dev, adding that a group of youngsters had met her in Silchar recently on the issue. “They are facing a lot of problems, including not getting jobs. Someone had to take a step,” she said.
On its part, the state government has been in touch with the Centre about the issue, with the Home and Political departments writing to the Union Home Secretary and RGI twice (in November 2020 and June 2021). In March, the state government met representatives of 27 organisations in Assam, and decided to move the Supreme Court on the matter.
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The petitioners also argued that Aadhaar was not proof of citizenship. “The Aadhar number is not a proof of citizenship and any person who has been a resident of the country for a period of 182 days in the preceding 6 months is eligible for enrolment under the Aadhar regime,” the plea said.
The matter has been listed for May 17.
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At the heart of the matter is a November 2018 Supreme Court-approved Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) which said that those left out of the draft NRC list published on July 31, 2018, had to mandatorily submit their biometrics during the hearings of ‘claims’ and ‘objections’ process in the run-up to the publication of the complete list on August 31, 2019.
The SOP said that once the final list was published, those included in the NRC, would be given the usual Aadhaar number. However, since its publication, the NRC, which left out 19.06 lakh of the 3.3 crore applicants, has been in a limbo. The RGI has not notified it and the state government is pushing for a ‘corrected NRC’. The lack of clarity on the NRC exercise, along with bureaucratic red tape, has led to a freeze on the biometric data.
