SC to consider petition on release of locked NRC biometrics in Assam

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• Apr 11, 2022 | Poonam Nath

In July 2018, the draft version of the NRC was released, excluding four million people.

Digital Desk: Supreme court to hear a plea demanding the release of encrypted biometrics of around 830,000 Assamese citizens whose fingerprints were taken for updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on Monday.

Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Dev claimed to file the petition last year with the help of counsel Tulika Mukherjee, but it was not immediately listed. "When ranking petitions, the Supreme Court favours the essential problems...." "This is a major public matter, and we are relieved that the court has consented to hear it," Dev added.

Four million persons were left off of the final draft of the NRC, which was released in July 2018. During the claims and objections phase, more than 2.7 million NRC applicants were fingerprinted. In August 2019, the supplementary NRC had around 1.9 million names. Those whose biometrics have been locked are not issued Aadhaar cards. As a result, 830,000 applications were denied.

"There is a valid foundation for categorisation for issuing biometric details of people whose claims and objections have been rejected. Their names do not figure in the NRC," Sushmita Dev stated in the petition. 

The people included in the NRC as a result of the supplementary list, on the other hand, cannot be considered a separate category from the people whose names were in the initial draft list. Sushmita continued that Aadhaar is linked to practically all services and that voter ID cards are also linked.

Dev added to her statement that "It is irrational to refuse Aadhar registration to someone whose name appeared on the list posted on August 31, 2019. Because there is no law barring allocating an Aadhar number to people whose names were on the final NRC list, such an act is not legal."

Assam Minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass said the state had petitioned the Registrar General of India (RGI) to alter the NRC's Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) so that 830,000 people can acquire Aadhaar cards.

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