E-Paper
Assam appoints new state NRC coordinator
A notification issued by Jadav Saikia, secretary, personnel department informed that Mazumdar, who is at present posted as registrar of cooperative societies and secretary to women and child welfare department will be transferred as a secretary to the home and political department as well as the post of Assam coordinator for NRC and in-charge of the directorate of NRC.
The Assam government on Thursday appointed IAS officer Partha Pratim Mazumdar as the new state coordinator for National Register of Citizens (NRC) in place of Hitesh Dev Sharma who will attain superannuation on July 31.
A notification issued by Jadav Saikia, secretary, personnel department informed that Mazumdar, who is at present posted as registrar of cooperative societies and secretary to women and child welfare department will be transferred as a secretary to the home and political department as well as the post of state coordinator for NRC and in-charge of the directorate of NRC.
The final list of updated NRC for Assam, which aimed to weed out illegal immigrants in the state, was released in August, 2019 and had excluded 1.9 million applicants based on doubts about their citizenship.
Within weeks of the list getting released, Prateek Hajela, an IAS officer who was the state NRC coordinator at that time and had overseen the entire exercise was transferred to his parent state Madhya Pradesh following instructions of the Supreme Court, which was monitoring the NRC process.
Hajela left Assam in November, 2019 and the Assam government appointed Hitesh Dev Sarma, another IAS officer, as the new state coordinator for NRC.
The final NRC has been rejected as incorrect by the state’s BJP-led government stating that that it had many anomalies and left out eligible persons and included illegal immigrants. The Assam government has since approached the Supreme Court seeking a review of the entire exercise.
Several local groups and organisations in Assam have also rejected the list and have approached SC seeking review. All those petitions are pending before the apex court at present.
Meanwhile, the NRC list is yet to be notified by the Registrar General of India, leading to a long wait by those left out of the list to file appeals before foreigners’ tribunals seeking inclusion as citizens.
In May this year, state coordinator of NRC Hitesh Dev Sarma lodged a police case against his predecessor Hajela alleging treason for intentionally allowing irregularities in preparing the list which resulted illegal migrants to register their names as Indians.
According to Sarma, Hajela knowingly disobeyed law, wilfully avoided proper quality checks in the process of updating NRC and allowed declared foreigners, doubtful voters and their descendants to enlist their names.
Terming this as anti-national activity, which could threaten the India’s security, Sarma lodged a case against Hajela and some other officers with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Assam Police on Thursday under sections 120B, 166A, 167, 181, 218, 420 and 466 of Indian Penal Code.
EOM
