By Nava Thakuria*
Assam Seeks Error-Free Citizens’ Register
Guwahati: Residents of Assam could soon see an accurate compilation of legitimate citizens in the northeastern state following the Supreme Court of India’s decision to consider a request for a thorough and timely re-examination of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that was revised between 2014 and 2019.
The nation’s highest court, on August 22, 2025, acknowledged the application submitted by Hitesh Devsarma, who previously served as the state coordinator for the NRC process in Assam, calling for a version of the register devoid of inaccuracies. In accepting the writ petition, the Supreme Court directed notifications to the central government, the Assam administration, the NRC coordinator, and the Registrar General of India (RGI).
The original NRC from 1951 in Assam underwent revision as per Supreme Court instructions, intending to identify all unlawful residents using a deadline of March 25, 1971—a date established in the 1985 memorandum of settlement that resolved the six-year Assam agitation aimed at identifying and expelling millions of undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh. After an application from Assam Public Works, the Supreme Court ordered the NRC update and is said to have overseen the procedure. Prateek Hajela, an Indian Administrative Service officer from the 1995 batch in the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, was designated as the state coordinator to manage the extensive undertaking. Shortly after the final draft of the NRC was published on August 31, 2019, excluding 1.9 million people as undocumented, Hajela was transferred to his native Madhya Pradesh amid security concerns.
Subsequently, the NRC revision effort became mired in allegations of corruption and procedural lapses, as uncovered by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). According to the CAG’s findings, financial discrepancies amounting to Rs 260 crore occurred during the exercise, and the premier audit authority suggested punitive measures against Hajela and Wipro Limited, the designated system integrator. Before the CAG’s assessment, Hajela’s replacement, Devsarma, highlighted mishandling in the NRC procedure that allegedly facilitated the inclusion of numerous infiltrators. He levelled a grave charge that the bureaucrat, who had a technical background, had manipulated the software involved to accommodate these foreigners driven by self-interest. As a result, the names of hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi Muslim settlers reportedly made it into the NRC draft. A crucial verification method known as ‘Family Tree Matching’ was also undermined by Hajela and his team, according to Devsarma, who called for investigations by the National Investigation Agency and the Directorate of Enforcement into Hajela’s conduct.
Recently, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma acknowledged defects in the NRC draft and stated that deception had been perpetrated against the people of Assam during the process, for which the national capital allocated Rs 1,600 crore. The leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party maintained that Hajela had produced an incorrect NRC for the state. Vigilant members of the public persist in advocating for a verifiable NRC specific to Assam, along with impartial inquiries into the CAG’s observations on corruption and the withholding of wages intended for approximately 6,000 temporary staff members. These individuals, hired as data entry operators (DEOs), received monthly payments ranging from Rs 5,500 to Rs 9,100 per person—amounts below the national minimum wage—while Wipro Limited was compensated an average of Rs 14,500 per month per DEO. The estimated sum of diverted funds, after accounting for fair profit allowances, exceeds Rs 100 crore and reportedly remains with Wipro or its subcontractor, Integrated System & Services, to this day.
With few exceptions, the media in Assam has been notably reluctant to cover the financial improprieties that surfaced during the NRC revision. In reality, most journalists in the region endeavoured to disseminate inaccurate information—for motives that remain unclear—while certain television reporters based in Guwahati insisted on portraying the final NRC draft as the highly desired record for the native populace. They actively campaigned for its adoption without any further checks. Social media platforms singled out at least one host of a TV discussion program for this conduct, yet he has offered no reply to the accusations as of now. This journalist even authored a publication lauding Hajela’s contributions as exceptional and advocating for nationwide honours for him. Consequently, observers believe that a proper investigation could reveal all those who sought to defraud the country for personal benefits.
What sets this development apart is the petition’s origin from a former insider to the NRC process itself, marking a rare instance where an ex-coordinator has directly challenged the integrity of the exercise he once led, combined with the chief minister’s public concession of flaws, potentially paving the way for unprecedented scrutiny into both technical manipulations and systemic graft in a document central to the state’s demographic identity.
*Senior journalist
