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Aadhaar cards: Centre asks UIDAI to unlock biometrics of 9,35,682 Assam citizens
The biometrics of these people were locked during the updation process of the National Register of Citizens in 2019.
The office of the Registrar General of India (RGI), under the Union ministry of home affairs, has asked the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to release the locked biometrics of 9,35,682 residents of Assam.
The biometrics of these people were locked during the updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019, and the order was finally issued on August 27 after several appeals by the Assam government, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
According to the RGI order, the decision was taken following the advice of the Solicitor General of India through the Ministry of Law and Justice if there is any legal impediment in issuing Aadhaar cards to these affected persons.
“The card was stopped by UIDAI due to NRC draft exercise related to biometric capturing or for administrative reasons mentioned in the proposal, if such persons are otherwise eligible. However, as per the Solicitor General, there is no legal impediment in issuing Aadhaar cards in Assam to affected persons whose Aadhaar number/Aadhaar,” the order read.
Deputy Director General of RGI, Biswajit Das, said, “Keeping the purpose and intent of the Aadhaar Act in mind and following the view of the Solicitor General, the Unique Identification Authority of India is requested to issue Aadhaar to these affected persons in Assam.”
The Assam CM welcomed this on Wednesday and said that the decision will help many indigenous people in the state.
“We initially thought that the biometrics of 2.7 million people were locked but the UIDAI authorities told us that only 9,35,682 genuine Indians are facing this issue. Now they will be allowed to apply for Aadhaar registrations,” Sarma said.
According to the CM, the biometrics were locked between February and August 2019 and many people whose names appeared in the drafts of NRC were accidentally locked.
“The government of India suddenly merged the Aadhaar and NRC in the same offices and the officials locked all the names that came as applications during those five months. After examining the process thoroughly, we realised that Aadhaar and NRC were not directly related,” Sarma said.
He said the Assam cabinet later formed a committee to examine the matter, and they also talked to the groups like All Assam Students’ Union to understand if the state government could appeal to the Centre for these biometrics.
“After getting the detailed report by the cabinet committee and positive responses from various organisations, we made an appeal to the central government. They asked the Assam government to send an official appeal and on July 29 this year we sent it,” he said.
Regarding the 19 people excluded from NRC, Sarma said they will have to go through the Foreigners Tribunals once the NRC gets approval from the RGI.
Opposition leaders have criticised the government, with Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev, who had filed a petition before the Supreme Court regarding this matter in 2021, accusing the BJP of “again trying to fool” the people of Assam.
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” Dev wrote on X.
