SC seeks response on issuance of Aadhaar card to persons added in NRC second list
The Supreme Court of India (Photo: PTI)
Guwahati, April 11: The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Registrar General of India, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), and the Assam Government on the issuance of Aadhaar cards to nearly 27 lakh persons who were included in the second list of National Register of Citizens (NRC).
A bench of Justices UU Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and PS Narasimha hearing the plea sought the response of the Centre, Assam and UIDAI in the matter.
The apex court was hearing to a plea filed by All India Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev seeking issuance of Aadhaar cards to persons who have been included in the final supplementary list of NRC.
The NRC was published in August 2019, and more than 19 lakh people in Assam were left out of the final list of the NRC, that comprised around 6% of Assam's entire population.
Prior to publishing of the final draft, the biometric details of over 27 lakh applicants had been collected while conducting the claims and objections phase of the exercise. As their biometric details were locked, these people were unable to register their names for Aadhaar enrolment.
Dev in her petition mentioned that the exemption of Aadhaar for those who have been listed in second NRC has halted them from availing the state sanctioned schemes, subsidies and benefits as the same requires mandatory registration under the Aadhaar regime.
"While there exists a reasonable basis of classification for release of the biometric details of those persons whose claims and objections have been rejected and their names don't appear on the NRC. However, people included in the NRC by the Supplementary list cannot be considered as a different class from the person whose names had appeared in the first draft list," Dev argued in the plea.
The plea contended that it is evident that there exists no bar in the Aadhaar Act that to deny Aadhaar number to persons whose names appear in the final supplementary NRC list released in August 31, 2019.