eae -o\ que. DISTRICT: IN THE GAUHATI HIGH COURT (THE HIGH COURT OF ASSAM, NAGALAND, MIZORAM AND ARUNACHAL PRADESH) (EXTRA ORDINARY JURISDICTION) pc) No 3387/2020 ¢ | a INTHE MATTER OF: 4 Rahima Begam @Rahima Khatun Petitioner 4 3 Versus ag Union of India & others Respondents: ~~ ant A INTHE MATTER OF: —5, The Affidavit in opposition on the behalf of the cd Respondent No. 6 AN AFFIDAVIT 1, Sci Hitesh Dev Sarma, 5/O- Late Madhab Chandra Sarma, aged about $8 years, State Coordinator, NRC, Assam do hereby solemnly following : and humbly state the 1, That, the deponent joined as Secretary to the Government of A Home & Political Department on 21* December, 2019 and took over the Of the State Coordinator, HRC, Assam on 24” December, 2019. 2. That, the deponent worked as Executive Director, NRC, Assam fr 2014 to February, 2017 and vas involved in formulating alt the v Process of MRC urxdation taker up til the end of 2016 with pre of Simitar nature of works in the Election Department in various Electoral Registration Officer, Election Officer, Returning Officer. charge: capacitie District Election Offi tof ie ‘Scanned with CamScannerSy That, at the time of joining as State Coordinator, NRC, Assam, the Supplementary NRC was already published by the LRCRs on 31% August, 2019, but the final National Register of Citizens is yet to be published by the Registrar General of India as per Clause 7 of the Schedule of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. 4 That, the State Coordinator, NRC, the respondent no 6. has been asked to file a comprehensive affidavit and “bring on record the situations along with necessary particulars, whereby inroads into the National Register of Citizens may have been created by individuals who are undeserving and not legally entitled to be included in the National Register of Citizens”, not confining to the district of Nalbari alone, but also of the other districts as well. The report submitted below is covering all categories of persons who are undeserving and legally not entitled to make the report a comprehensive one as directed by the Hon'ble Court and not limited to the category of Declared Foreigners only. 5, That, in an order dated 19-09-2018 in WP(C) 274/209 (Annexure-A), the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India passed an interim direction to Sri Prateek Hajela in person that "We have also considered the Confidential Report/Reports filed by Shri Prateek Hajela which has/have been placed before us in a sealed cover(s). Though Shri K.K, Venugopal, learned Attorney General for India has stated that a copy of the said report/reports be made available to the Union of India, we are of the view that having regard to the sensitive nature of some of the_information contained therein _which_may affect the entire exercise undertaken and also the exercise that may be required to be undertaken by the Court the said _report/reports should remain in the custody of the Court for the present. The request of the learned Attorney General for Inaia will be considered on the next date fixed._In the meantime, we direct Shri Hajela not to share any information pertaining to the ongoing exercise of undation of the NRC with any Executive, Legislative or Judicial Authority of the State without leave of the Court” However, on 23" October,2018 (Annexure-B), the Hon'ble Court did Scanned with CamScanner Gilet fir Soma= That, at the time of joining as State Coordinator, NRC, Assam, the Supplementary NRC was already published by the LRCRs on 31° August, 2019, but the final National Register of Citizens is yet to be published by the Registrar General of India as per Clause 7 of the Schedule of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. 4. That, the State Coordinator, NRC, the respondent no 6. has been asked to file a comprehensive affidavit and “bring on record the situations along with necessary particulars, whereby inroads into the National Register of Citizens may have been created by individuals who are undeserving and not legally entitled to be included in the National Register of Citizens", not confining to the district of Nalbari alone, but also of the other districts as well, The report submitted below is covering all categories of persons who are undeserving and legally not entitled to make the report a comprehensive one as directed by the Hon'ble Court and not limited to the category of Declared Foreigners only. 5. That, in an order dated 19-09-2018 in WP(C) 274/2009 (Annexure-A), the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India passed an interim direction to Sri Prateek Hajela in person that "We have also considered the Confidential Report/Reports filed by Shri Prateek Hajela which has/have been placed before us in a sealed cover(s). Though Shri K.K. Venugopal, learned Attorney General for India has Stated that 2 copy of the said report/reports be made available to the Union of India, we are of the view that having regard to the sensitive nature of some of the information contained therein which may affect the entire exercise undertaken and also the exercise that may be required to be undertaken by the Court the said _report/reports should remain in the custody of the Court for the present. The request of the learned Attorney General for India will be considered on the next date fixed. In the meantime, we direct Shri Hajela not to share any information pertaining to the ongoing exercise of updation of the NRC with any Executive, Legislative or Judicial Authority of the State without leave of the Court” However, on 23" October,2018 (Annexure-B), the Hon’ble Court did 2 0f 18 Scanned with CamScannernot any order ema sha Not pass any order on the matter of sharing of information pertaining to the Ongoing exercise of updation of NRC with Authority of the State. any Executive, Legislative or Judicial However, in another order dated 13-08-2019 (AnReXUFe=C)) the Hon'ble Supreme Court passed an order that" sofar_ as th e prayer of the Seamed State Coordinator with regard to maintenance of security of the NRC gata is concemed, we direct that an appropriate regime be enacted on lines Similar to the security regime provided for AADHAR data. Only thereafter, the 4st of inclusions and exclusions shall be made available to the State Government, Central Government and. Registrar General of India’. That, this Hon'ble Court may please to consider my affidavit in light of the above two orders of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India. 6. That, Rahima Khatun D/O Atowar Rahman, W/O Ambar Ali resident of village Nadia, PS -Mukalmua, Nalbari is a Declared Foreigner vide Nalbari FT (3) Case No.523/2018 opinion dated 08-11-2019. She had applied for inclusion of her name in NRC through the ARN 101832302134017401639 under Barkhetri 2 No. NSK of Barkhetri Revenue Circle of Nalbari District and her name was included in the NRC. During the time of NRC verification process, the petitioner having a Case Pending at Nalbari FT No.3 against her was apparently not taken into account by the verifying officer and the petitioner was declared as Foreigner on 08-11-2019 i,e, after 31% August-2019, the date of publication of Supplementary list of NRC. It is, therefore, evident that her name should not have been included in the NRC as there was a proceeding pending against her in the Foreigner’s Tribunal during publication of the supplementary list. It’s an error on the part of the verifying officer as the list of Pending cases in Foreigners Tribunal was shared with the Deputy Commissioners from time to time. Copy of letters at Annexure- ‘D’. However, the Final NRC is yet to be published by the Registrar General of India as per Clause 7 of the Schedule in the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. 2 of 18 Scanned with CamScanner QileA ow SoScanned with CamScannerThat. in another similarly situated case, the petitioner in WP(C) 2019 Meser Ali was declared as Foreigner on 22-03-2018 by the Forelgner’s Tribunal, Jorhat which was before 30-07-2018, the date of the publication of Draft NRC and it was upheld by the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court subsequently vide judgement dated 06-12-2019, i.e after publication of the supplementary list of NRC on 31-Aug-2019. The Petitioner had applied in NRC vide ARN 101830102012151601751 under Mankachar 13 No NSK of Mankachar Revenue Circle, South Salmara district and his name was included in the NRC. Since he is declared as Foreigner, the name of Meser Ali should not have been included in the NRC. 8. That, after publication of supplementary list of inclusion and exclusion on 31st August, 2019, some of the District Registrar of Citizens Registers (DRCR) formally requested the office of the State Coordinator, NRC to change results of NRC with proper reasons (through a webform). Altogether 10,199 Nos, of formal requests were received from DRCRs to change the results of NRC. Out of 10,199 persons, a total of 5,404 numbers were for changing the result from ‘Reject! to ‘Accept’ and a total of 4,795 numbers were for changing result from ‘Accept’ to ’Reject’. It was found that the DRCRs requested to change results of NRC from “Accept to Reject” for 1,032 ineligible persons belonging to Declared Foreigner (DF), Doubtful Voter (DV), Person having cases pending at Foreigners Tribunal(PFT), their descendants (DFD, DVD, PFTD) and for 3,763 numbers of person who were found ineligible for other reasons, which are still included in the NRC. The list is enclosed as Annexure- *E’. In this regard, instruction has been sent to all the DRCRs on 13 October, 2020 to act as per clause 4(3) and 4(6) of the Schedule of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens & Issue of National Identity cards), Rules, 2003 and pass speaking orders deleting the names of ineligible persons under the categories of Declared Foreigner (DF), D Voter (DV), and person having cases pending at FT(PFT) and their descendants 4 of 18 Scanned with CamScannerBRR Ae RS CHEN) ARAM F AAR PeBON. Tho copy of the Tatler ta the: SRE BN AAE AS ANMORMIEE FL ACHONT GF The damnalning 464 Ineligible ASO RETRNN RAE IY DRERE ALN ConniteteNt after Farther verfication subject gS ae! BY He Aawstiar General of India, For putting the: veritteation ARAN EA NACA, AANOVe! OF The Ralattar General of India 1 needed ane PANNE VINNY, CN OSNAEY SaAW HON oF iat bY the Registrar General of Tndia will Re RRWNE AY Suh Verification That, after receiving taports from the Deputy CAAPRERRIS OF Ante OF Wretlglble names into the NRE and some more TERIA RRS ON ato HOnt while processing fOr @ OF rejection slips, it was AAR RRR fo AVIS the Process of Verification in the interest of an error fee: NAC as f GERRY Eelates to the National security and integrity especially in the Hight of QaSSetions of the Hon'he Supreme Court in the Sarbananda Sonowal SS WA EELoF DOO where it was said that S\.. Zhe State of Assi ds Grclng “exert! veression: gon denny! citurtane” on accouny of farge sane {et BDO OF SWERESY MRTOTES number of District Registrar of Citizens Registrations (DRCR) eeperted thet 4,082 number of persons belonging to the DV/DF/PFT categories: and their descendants have been wrongly included in NRC. Reports were called, Sam the DRORs of these cts as to how names of such ineligible persons got incudied’ Im NRC, and as per the reports received from the districts, it is found most of the cases, names of such persons were wronaly included due to a y errors, Moreover, few districts have also reported that during hearing the Disposing Officers could not properly determine the status of DV/DF/PFT cakeg nd their descendants. This might be because of the fact that during hearing, the Circle Level Committee (CLC) so formed comprising of Circle Officer, Foreigners Tribunal Member, ERO, Election Officer, LRCR, AERO and reoresentative of Border Police could not have guided the Disposing Officers for correct Identification of these ineligible persons while disposing Claims & Objection, Moreover, the Disposing Officers were allowed to take up cases Devond their jurisdiction. (Annexure -G) Sof 18 Scanned with CamScanner —_——- x _— LA. gp10, That, the observations as given below are based on my findings and Whatever [have been able to garner with whatever has been found available in the office of the State Coordinator, NRC, Assam. That, my experience of working for the process In an earlier assignment as Executive Director, NRC Assam from May'2014 to February'2017 has helped me analyse and frame my observations in the best possible manner. The observations below are based on records available In the office of the SCNR and the database stored in the data centre, Will definitely help in explaining the “situations whereby inroads into the National Register of Citizens may have been created by individuals who are undeserving and not legally entitled to be included in the National Register of Citizens, not confining to the district of Nalbari alone, but also of the other districts as well’ ‘as sought for by the Hon'ble Court. ii. That, as per Clause 3(3) of the Schedule under the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules,2003, the original inhabitants (OI) names are to be included in the consolidated list directly without any further verification. Clause 3(3) of the Schedule provides that "the names of persons who are originally inhabitants of the State of Assam and their children and descendants, who are Citizens of India, shall be included in the consolidated list if the Citizenship_of such persons is ascertained beyond feasonable doubt and to the satisfaction of the registering authority’. The decision of the LRCRs on the eligibility of a person under Clause 3(3) (eligibility as Original Inhabitant of Assam) was left to the Circle Registrar of Citizen Registration (CRCR) first for vetting through a software called Xiddhanta Online. After the CRCR vetting was done, the data was to be sent to the DRCR for final vetting, (i.e. marking the person as 3(3) or Non-3(3) (others). Following this, the DRCR was to take a decision on the CRCR’s recommendation and the LRCR's decision. It however appears that the vetting of DRCR/CRCR was not done properly which could be concluded from the following example. 6 of 18 Scanned with CamScannerOn 28th June’2019, the Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup district submitted a report vide letter no. NRC(K)32/2019/confidential/3 on wrongly marking applicants as OF under Clause 3(3). In his report it was said that“a total no of 1,43,522 members applied for NRC under Chamaria Circle. Out of which 64,247 members have been marked 3(3) and their names have already entered in the draft NRC". He also reported that some random verification was done and 14,183 were found who do not fall under the 3(3) category, but they had been wrongly marked as 3(3). He submitted that .... "There may be some more such cases as the verification of the entire 64,247 persons marked as 3(3) could not be completed within a short time”. (Annexure ‘H’) Just before the publication of the final NRC (on 5" ,6"" & 7 August, 2019), a special verification was hurriedly carried out against 30,791 number of people (out of 64,247 reported by Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup) under Chamaria Circle of Kamrup District. During re-verification, 7446 numbers out of 30,791 persons were found ineligible for inclusion in Supplementary list of NRC. The disturbing fact is that out of this 7446 persons found ineligible, as many as 8 were declared foreigners, 2 were descendants of declared foreigners, 19 were doubtful voters (as marked by the Election Commission of India), 43 were descendants of doubtful voters, 13 cases were pending in the Foreigners Tribunal, and 10 were of descendants of persons whose matters were pending in the Foreigners Tribunals (Annexure-"I’). This is also to be noted that the remaining 23,345 persons who were found eligible for inclusion into the NRC on different grounds other than the ground of Original Inhabitant of Assam led to the conclusion that all the 30,791 persons were wrongly entered into the draft NRC through 3(3) Identification and Vetting (Xiddhanta QC for CRCR and DRCR). Remaining 33,794 out of 64,247 was not called for re-verification. A similar exercise was however not done in other parts of the state, thus leading to the suspicion that there may be more ineligible persons whose names have been entered into the NRC through the window of Clause 3(3), the Original Inhabitant criteria, against whom there was no provision for further verification. 7 of 18 Scanned with CamScanner L Sax Garr WS L YTo tain whether there were more such ci person getting entry into the NRC through wrong marking of Original I in other areas of t tate, a team from the office of the State Cor he ded by the Executive Director & Joint Secretary, Home & Political department was sent to Lahorighat Circle and Ohing Circle. The team made some sample checks and found that out of 10 nai marked as OI in Dhing Circle, 8 names were not from the OI community. Similarly, out of 6 names marked as OF in Lahorighat Circle, 2 names were found not from the OI community. (Annexure- 3) It is possible that some of these persons may have been qualified for entry into NRC through valid documents had there been a document verification. But there is every possibility that some of them may not have any valid documents like the above mentioned Chamaria incident where 7446 persons found ineligible for NRC got their entry into NRC through the OI window. On the other hand, as per Clause 3(3) of the Citizenship (Registration of Gitizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, all Original Inhabitants of Assam have the eligibility to be included in the draft NRC phase itself. But the fact is that quite a large number of such persons (Original Inhabitants) were left out from the Draft NRC. Some of these left-out persons did not even submit their claims petitions also. Sample list at (Annexure- ‘K’). 12, That, the Matching of “Family Tree” would have been the ultimate full- proof method of NRC verification, had it been executed with due diligence. In the Family Tree Matching process, all the offspring of a ‘Legacy Person’ from whom lineage is claimed were asked to submit their family details, which were then compared and matched through a software with the other family trees submitted by descendants of the same legacy person. Thus, there appears a mismatch as and when there is an attempt to claim false lineage, since elaborate checking can easily expose the names of those persons who are not biological descendants of the legacy person. The mechanism was sought to be such that the Family Tree of the genuine offspring match with each other. And the Family 8 of 18 Scanned with CamScanner Gane Blah BeTree of the imposters, who attempt to assume descendance through pre-1971 legacy documents as their ancestors, do not match with that of the genuine offspring, However, evidence now points that due diligence was not applied While conducting this process. ‘There is every reason to believe that the Family Tree Matching process did not work properly and thus falled to achieve the desired objective due to the following reasons: i) It is a matter of serious concern that before the selection/engagement of the Data Entry Operators (DEO), the citizenship status, integrity and loyalty of these DEOs were never verified; the process was completed only through some routine police verification concerning some common criminal activities. There were no background verifications of DEOs done by the then SCNR. The DEOs being the key representatives of NRC project at the ground level, there should have been intense verification of citizenship, credentials and all other relevant records of those persons who were selected as DEOs. It would have been appreciable if, randomisation, as is practiced during Elections, was adopted in case of all those personnel engaged in the process, vested interests could have been prevented from being executed by doubtful characters. This might have happened due to the fact that the actual remuneration received by these operators was too paltry a sum as per Minimum Wages Act for them to move away from their place of residence and work. Remuneration of DEOs submitted by ISS , the vendor of System Integrator at Annexure-L. Upto September’2017, they were given remuneration below the rates prescribed by Minimum Wages Act. ii) Large number of officers who were deployed in the Family Tree Matching process had varying degrees of skill and training, it was necessary to monitor the process very closely through Quality Check (QC) by superior officers like the manner in which it was done during the Office Verification phase. But surprisingly, there was no QC in the entire Family Tree Matching process; and it is at this stage where the entire process of verification may have been vitiated. 9 of 18 Scanned with CamScannerTree of the imposters, who attempt to assume descendance through pre-1971. legacy documents as their ancestors, do not match with that of the genuine offspring. However, evidence now points that due diligence was not applied while conducting this process. There is every reason to believe that the Family Tree Matching process did not work properly and thus failed to achieve the desired objective due to the following reasons: i) It is. a matter of serious concern that before the selection/engagement of the Data Entry Operators (DEO), the citizenship status, integrity and loyalty of these DEOs were never verified; the process was completed only through some routine police verification concerning some common criminal activities. ‘There were no background verifications of DEOs done by the then SCNR. The DEOs being the key representatives of NRC project at the ground level, there should have been intense verification of citizenship, credentials and all other relevant records of those persons who were selected as DEOs. It would have been appreciable if, randomisation, as is practiced during Elections, was adopted in case of all those personnel engaged in the process, vested interests could have been prevented from being executed by doubtful characters. This might have happened due to the fact that the actual remuneration received by these operators was too paltry a sum as per Minimum Wages Act for them to move away from their place of residence and work. Remuneration of DEOs submitted by ISS , the vendor of System Integrator at Annexure-L. Upto September'2017, they were given remuneration below the rates prescribed by Minimum Wages Act. ii) Large number of officers who were deployed in the Family Tree Matching process had varying degrees of skill and training, it was necessary to monitor the process very closely through Quality Check (QC) by superior officers like the manner in which it was done during the Office Verification phase. But surprisingly, there was no QC in the entire Family Tree Matching process; and it is at this stage where the entire process of verification may have been vitiated. 9 of 18 Scanned with CamScannerScanned with CamScannerIn fact, the Family Tree Matching software was prepared in such a manner that it prevented the supervisory officers to monitor the works of the verifying officers. The Family Tree Matching was done in two phases, namely eForm 3 and LVRRS (Linkage Verification Result Review System) ~ where the verifying officers were asked to match the Manual Family Trees (MFT) submitted by descendants of same legacy person in hard copies with the help of the Computer-Generated Family Tree (CFT) in the laptops provided to them. iil) In eForm3 verification, matches in various MFTs against the concerned Legacy Data Code were to be put as “Y” and mismatches as "N” and the "Y's are accepted for inclusion into NRC and “N" are to be put for further verification. By doing so, persons fraudulently using legacy data could be easily detected. After matching various MFTs of descendants of same legacy person with the help of CFT, the verifying officers were to upload their findings to the cloud which eventually went to the database of the NRC. But the software was prepared in such a manner that as soon as the data is uploaded, the data vanishes from the laptop screen of the verification officer and becomes no longer available for any quality check (QC) by supervisory officers in order to ascertain whether the matching of MFTs was done properly or not. This has been confirmed by the IT vendor M/S Bohniman Systems Pvt Limited who prepared the software. (Annexure-M) iv) Linkage Verification Result Review System (LVRRS) was supposedly developed for reviewing and rectifying any errors that might have occurred while making entries in the eForm 3 (family tree matches). In cases where all the hard copies of MFTs belonging to the descendants of the same legacy person were not available in home-NSK, the officers from away-NSKs were asked to match the MFTs where remaining hard copies of the MFTs against the same legacy person were available. The CFT against one legacy person and all the scanned copies of MFTs of the home-NSKs were made available in addition to the hard copy of MFTs available with away-NSKs against the same legacy person. Through this software, the officers in charge of the distant NSKs could see the 10 of 18 Scanned with CamScanner Serena Our { ka [eosresult uploaded by the officers of home-NSKs, but there was no option in the software to make any correction of probable mistakes done by the officers of the home-NSks, thus making the process infructuous and vitiating the entire purpose of the software. This too has been confirmed by the IT vendor M/S Bohniman Systems Pvt Limited who prepared the software. It can be concluded that the software prepared for matching of Family Tree has no provision for quality checks. Rather the software was so prepared to avoid any quality checks giving the verifying officers of doubtful integrity a free hand to upload wrong results to fulfil their vested interest. 13, The present job in hand under updation of NRC, as per SOP approved by the Registrar General of India, is to prepare for issue of rejection slips to the Claimants whose claims were rejected during the Claims & Objections period, after Final publication of NRC by the Registrar General of India. I consider it as my bounden and sacred duty to apply my mind into the whole process instead of doing it mechanically from the stage where my predecessor had left. While processing for the issue of rejection slips, where speaking orders by the Disposing Officers (DO) are to be attached, certain discrepancies have been noticed in the speaking orders of the DOs regarding Family Tree Matching. The above findings came up while trying to address the issue. To evaluate the precise effects of absence of Quality Check (QC) in the Family Tree Matching, some sample checks were made on the results of the Family Tree Matching for some Legacy Data Code (LDCs) used under three NSKs - namely Baghbar 29, Kalgachia 6 (these two in Barpeta district) and Dalgaon 6 (in Darrang district) through limited manpower in the office, during which the following facts have come to light : Total No of Legacy Data Code (LDC) used in the state : 39,29,703 Number of Legacy Data Code (LDC) verified in 3 NSKs > 2,346 Number of names erroneously entered into NRC through Family Tree Match : 943 11 of 18 Scanned with CamScanner hin GateFrom the above, 943 persons names were entered into the draft NRC gah wrong uploading of data out of 2,346 LDC checked, About 40.2% erroneous entries (error out of legacy code verified) in to the draft NRC were found in the sample check, which is very high by any standard and which perhaps) cannot be taken as unintentional human error. This implies that integrity of some of the verifying officers were not beyond doubt. And lack of quality checks by superior officers gave the verifying officers free hand to upload wrong results to fulfil their vested interest and seemingly the then State Coordinator had no any control over these officers. Thus, the purpose of the Family Tree Matching was found to be completely vitiated. Unless a thorough re-examination of the entire Family Tree Verification process is made, a large number of ineligible names may + continue to remain in the NRC. 14. That, Office Verification of documents submitted by the applicants was \ done by sending the scan of such documents to the issuing authority to ascertain SB the genuineness of documents, which is called back-end verification. But in December’2017, the practice of back-end verification was done away with and pending Office Verifications were disposed of through District Magistrate Investigation (DMIT). The DMIT team would check and compare the original documents and determine the authenticity of those documents through their subjective decisions. That, the Office Verification started from October’2015. The back-end verification was almost a full-proof method to detect submission of false/forged documents. About 6.5 crores documents were sent to the issuing authorities for back-end verification and verification results of all the document could not be received timely. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India also took pain to ask the Chief Secretaries of States to expedite submission of verification report in its various orders. Results of some documents were received as ‘NO’ under the categories of FD (Forged document), RNA (Record Not Available) or ILL (Illegible), Invalid Document (ID), while a large chunk of documents remained pending with the 19 nf AR Scanned with CamScannerIn the next phase of DMIT (Round 2), the applicants were gwen a suitable date to appear before the DMIT team through a centrally generated LFRs (Letter for Re-verification) though the order of 27 March 2018 of the Hon'ble Supreme Court asked for house to house DMIT verification. The { applicants had to bring the Originals of the documents that they had subrrutted during the NRC application phage. The DMIT team would check the Originals é aed determine the authenticity of those documents, Similar to Round 1, Round “4 2of OMIT was conducted for those applicants whose Office Verification Resets (OV) were oot at alt received from the issuing authorities, and tase were considered 23 “Forced Record Not Available (FRIIA)” other thar MOCRNA) oF ev NG(NLA), and documents of 10,46,260 numbers (applicatie for 919,088 5 Gerson) mere marked a3 "FRNA". However, DMIT Round 2 were hearings Sased, : ss the GICs being the venue of the hearings. 1 may be Concluded thet OMT mas & COnGLCtEN te Re-verity the documents for which Fesuits were eer Sot receives? from tine iseuing authorities oF received a2 WO. And applicants whe were Witatlly ejected for ne Ovi got a second chants to get included because Of Me eviews of the inital results through the subjectne decisions Of the officers, mas Mating ‘way fo ineligible persons to NRC, whereas ie the letter (Bia. SPMII/ MIRC Diet Cm» Eequipy/66/2025/Pt-3/ 108 dated 19" Ocroner 2017), it was corwrmsrucates tat "ye accordance with the provisions of Te law, Ce onus of prot A keer yp Wee wth the applicant’ Mibeah the provisions of lam Sawe emphasizes on erawing ihe chtvenship on the applicants, tis onserved here Met officer: mere tyeg we prove the cittenstp of te applicants by giing Mem 2 second chance tm Me verity ohew documents ard Tew stigitality for wcuasior at raft MRC jubpee tery These s.iReTue Gensone were coconied 1° 2 precrberd format ant st Mma recordings of soaking orter scored statements of LM, Ci, loxtenai, seomsing Ctens atc as mentored (te SOP CAMEL Moremoe cso tie Sugreme Courts order of Route fo Ronee werfication man ot carvind ot ding SIME? scared 2, cotter applicants mere catted for Menring at MG, The process of OEE ans camrened cask with are dees me erty or eevtee thee ONE ecetert Fone The Shug sutton ty seid to fake autertie decisions on document: veteere there 14 of 1 Scanned with CamScannerwere no back-end verification results. In case of any reviewed decision, it Is mandatory to have a speaking order justifying the reasons of review under quasi-judicial process. Subjective review of results of office verification through officers of mainly Grade - II and Grade-II without following quasi-judicial norms might have resulted entry of undeserving person into the NRC, DMIT-2 was conducted for 11,63,127 number of people and 6,10,611 number of persons |. were marked as “Yes” and 5,52,516 persons were marked as “No”. Q To sum up, 18,96,698 persons got entry into the NRC through this OMIT (OMIT 1 +DMIT 2) verification where there were either no back-end verification & results or initial verification results were "NO". The areas where people got the maximum benefit of DMIT verification is shown at Annexure-P. x Moreover, some back-end verification results were received after DMIT was taken up, but these results were not considered for deciding the eligibility for inclusion into the NRC and the decision of DMIT results prevailed so far as inclusion into NRC was concerned. In post DMIT period, 2,91,669 results were received. There are 17,916 OV results (post DMIT) were received as “No” against persons who were accepted during DMIT 2. These 17,343 persons are still in the NRC despite the Office verification results were "NO". 15. That, the complete draft NRC, the consolidated list, was published after Field Verification, Office Verification and Family Tree Match, which are all of administrative nature. But when outcome of the complete draft NRC was challenged through claims and objections, these claims and objections were to be disposed of through hearing which is a quasi-judicial process. The quasi- judicial order means a verdict in writing (speaking order) which determines and decides contesting issues and question by a forum other than a court. Altogether 5,06,140 decisions taken by the Disposing Officers were reviewed and changed by the CRCRs and DRCRs electronically in three phases through different software namely ALX, CCP, Spreadsheet using some drop-down options (Anniextire"Q’) in the software without any speaking order spelling explicitly the reasons of not agreeing with the order of the Disposing Officers. The results 15 of 18 Scanned with CamScannerof these reviews have no legality under any quasi-judicial process even if it were done uncer Clause 4(3) of the Schedule, as the original decision is taken through quasi-judicial procedure. An order passed by a quasi-judicial authority may be reviewed only through a quasi-judicial order. It may be mentioned here that the order passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in WP(C) No. 274/209 on 23-07- 2019 had allowed the State Coordinator, NRC, Assam, to combine the provisions of Clause 4(3), 4(5), 5 and 6 of the Schedule to the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, thus giving way to review of decisions of the LRCR(DOs in this case) by the DRCRs. Clause 4(6) of the Schedule to the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 clearly says that “Zhe District Reaistrar of Citizen Reaistration shall, by order, and for reasons to be recorded in writing for inclusion or, as the case may be, exclusion of names, dispose of the report of the verification, and the report of verification which are allowed for inclusion of names and which are not allowed for inclusion shall ately, vill 2nd ward wise along with the list of all such cases” It may also be mentioned here that the Hon’ble Supreme Court in WP(C) No. 274/2009 on 30-05-2019 directed that “Sri Hajela shall ensure that the hearing of the claims and objections, which are currently going on, are complied with strictly in accordance with the law by the concerned officers .....”. But decisions of DOs were reviewed by the CRCRs/DRCRs in a summary manner without giving the claimants any chance to be heard and only 6,542 numbers of cases were reviewed through speaking orders (but without any hearing) out of total 5,06,140 reviewed order. 43,642 names were changed from reject to accept without any hearing & written speaking orders by the CRCRs which may lead to entry of ineligible persons into the NRC. 16. That, whereas the above observations based on facts may throw light into the situations leading to undeserving persons getting entry into the NRC, some procedural flaws may allow more undeserving person getting entry into NRC in future. This is because of the fact that the there was no mention of 16 of 18 Scanned with CamScanner ek Bay Lane oh / JJurisdiction in the notifications by the Deputy Commissioners entrusting Disposing Officers (DO) to dispose of the Claims & Objections. Also, DO of one place were allowed to dispose of Claims petitions of another Place, which is beyond the jurisdiction of the notifying authority itself, is unheard of in any quasi- Judicial process. Deletion orders passed by DOs without jurisdiction may likely to be quashed by any court of law when challenged paving way to all the deleted Persons to be enlisted in NRC again. Sample DO’s notification without mention of jurisdiction and correct sample notification of LRCRs with Jurisdiction at Annexure -R, 17. That, from above it can be concluded that there are names of undeserving and not legally entitled persons in the draft NRC as well as in the supplementary list of NRC. It may be mentioned that the Hon'ble Supreme Court Of India, in its order dated 23rd July, 2019, in connection with WP (C) no 274/2009, while disposing of the prayer of sample re-verification of 10% to 20% by the Union of India and the State government, had observed that as there was an incidental verification of 27%, there is no need of further sample verification, But considering the fact that 1,02,462 names deleted through ‘incidental verification’ of 27%, one definitely cannot ignore the remaining 73% unverified results where there may be 2.77 lakhs undeserving names in the NRC going by the same arithmetic. Absence of quality check in the Original Inhabitant marking and the family tree matching might be the main reason for inclusion of such undeserving names in the Draft NRC and the Supplementary list where some delinquent officers got free hand to upload wrong results of verification into the data base. Secondly, the system of back-end verification was done away with in the DMIT verification phase, where officers were allowed to take decisions on unverified documents and documents initially rejected in a subjective way instead of rigorous back-end verification followed in earlier stage raising serious doubts on correctness of such decisions. Thirdly, large number of undeserving persons names might get entry to NRC in future for not following the norms of quasi-judicial norms. Scanned with CamScanner18. That, all the anomalies have been reported to the Registrar General of India by the deponent vide letter no. SPMU/NRC/Correspondence with RGI/13/2014/Pt-V/128 dated 15" February’2020 seeking necessary directions for corrective measures in the interest of an error free NRC which is of utmost importance as NRC is directly related to the National security and integrity. But no directions have been communicated by the Registrar General of India on the anomalies reported. Rather instructions have been received for issue of rejection slips and winding up of the operation of updation of NRC. The Registrar General of India is also silent on final publication of the NRC for which it is the only authority to take action and till date the Final NRC is yet to be published by Registrar General of India as per Clause 7 of the rules under of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules 2003. 19. That, the Registrar General of India is the highest authority under whose direction the updation of NRC is being taken up and is the only statutory authority empowered to take any decision on correction/rectification of anomalies if it is felt necessary. 20. The statements made in this affidavit and those made in paragraphs in paragraphs 1,2,3,4, 17 and 19 are true to my knowledge and those made in Paras 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (partly), 11 (partly), 12 (partly), 13 (partly), 14 (partly), 15 (partly), 16 (partly) and 18 are true to information as derived from records and rests are humble submission before this Hon’ble Court Oath, I swear that this declaration is true, that it conceals nothing and that no part of it is false, so help me God. Signed this affidavit on this 3 day of December, 2020 at Guwahati Identified by Deponent Sick ey Advocates’ clerk. Scanned with CamScanner