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Introduction

National Register of Citizens (NRC) is the register comprising names of Indian citizens. The only time that an NRC was composed was in 1951, after the conduct of the 1951 census. It was made by recording particulars of all the persons enumerated during the 1951 Census. 

  • Now, NRC will be updated to include the names of those individuals (or their descendants) who appear in the National Register of Citizens, 1951, or in any electoral rolls till the midnight of March 24, 1971, or in any one of the other admissible documents or papers issued up to midnight of March 24, 1971, which would verify their presence in Assam state or in any part of India on or before March 24, 1971. 
  • All the names mentioned in the NRC, 1951, or any other electoral rolls up to the midnight of March 24, 1971, together are called Legacy Data. Thus, there will be two requirements for inclusion in the updated NRC: 
  • Existence of an individual’s name in the pre-1971 period.
  • Proving a relationship with that person.

The Case of Assam

  • The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, as well as the Citizenship Act, 1955, govern NRC updates in Assam. 
  • The process of revising Assam’s portion of the NRC began in 2013 when the Indian Supreme Court ordered that it be changed. Following that, the Supreme Court (led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman) kept a close eye on it. 
  • The most recent update of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), issued on August 31, 2019, includes 31 million names out of a population of 33 million. It turned down roughly 1.9 million applicants, who appeared to be evenly split between Bengali Hindus, Bengali Muslims, and other Hindus from around India. 
  • Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) had a new State Coordinator appointed recently.
  • The Supreme Court-monitored NRC exercise, aimed at weeding out “illegal immigrants” from Assam, has been in limbo since the complete draft list of citizens was published on August 31, 2019. Some 19.06 lakh people out of 3.3 crore applicants were excluded from the list based on doubts about their citizenship.