NRC head files complaint against predecessor for data 'anomalies'
Guwahati(PTI): Assam coordinator of National Register of Citizens (NRC) Hitesh Dev Sarma has lodged a complaint with the CID against his predecessor, Prateek Hajela, and others accusing them of committing anti-national and criminal activities while updating the register.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is, however, yet to register an FIR against those being accused who included several officers and data entry operators associated with the process, a senior police official said on Friday.
The NRC, an official record of bonafide Indian citizens living in Assam, was updated under the supervision of the Supreme Court and released on August 31, 2019, leaving out more than 19 lakh applicants. However, it has not been notified by the Registrar General of India.
Hajela, a 1995 batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, had been appointed by the apex court as the NRC state coordinator in 2013. He was released from the charge on November 12, 2019, and the court ordered his transfer from Assam to his home state Madhya Pradesh.
We have received a petition from the NRC office. Due procedure has to be maintained before the CID registers any case. We are pursuing the petition, the official told PTI on condition of anonymity.
In his complaint, a copy of which is available with PTI, Sarma has alleged anomalies in Family Tree Verification and other document verification processes during updating of the NRC.
Family Trees were drawn to establish legacy data accurately during the updating process of the citizenship document. Sarma has alleged that no order for quality check during the Family Tree Matching phase was issued by Hajela.
The software used in the process also had no scope for quality checks, thus giving the verifying officers of doubtful integrity a free hand to upload wrong results to fulfil their vested interests , the complaint stated.
Prateek Hajela might have intentionally avoided the mandatory quality checks by ordering the use of such a software and facilitated entry of names of ineligible persons into the NRC which can be seen as an anti-national act affecting national security , according to the complaint.
Sarma said that to evaluate the precise effects of the absence of quality checks in the Family Tree Matching phase, some sample checks were made under three NRC Seva Kendras (NSKs) two in Barpeta district and one in Darrang district.
Out of 39,29,703 numbers of Legacy Data Code used in the state, 2,346 were verified in these three NSKs. Of these, 975 names were found to be erroneously entered into NRC through Family Tree Match , the incumbent NRC state coordinator claimed.
Anomalies were also found in several other stages of the updating process, Sarma claimed and sought registration of a case against Hajela and others on charges of cheating, forgery and other offences.
Complaints against Hajela on such issues were raised earlier by others also. Several petitions are still pending before the Supreme Court.
The Assam Public Works (APW), an NGO whose petition in the Supreme Court led to the updation of the National Register of Citizens, filed a similar complaint in June last year against Hajela with the CID of the state bordering Bangladesh.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma after assuming office on May 10, 2021, had said that his government wants re-verification of 20 per cent of names in the NRC for the border districts of Assam, while it should be done for 10 per cent of names in the rest.
The first NRC was compiled in Assam in 1951 based on the Census report but it was not updated for a long time. The APW in 2009 filed a case in the Supreme Court praying for deletion of foreigners' names in electoral rolls and updation of the NRC.
A pilot project for the process started in two places the next year but it was shelved after four persons were killed in violence in one area.
In 2013, the Supreme Court took up the APW petition, directed the Centre and the state to begin the process of updating the NRC. The State Coordinator's office was also set up. The updation process of the NRC finally began in 2015.
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TMC MP Saket Gokhale slams Bihar electoral roll revision, claims 1.26 crore voters 'deleted'
New Delhi(PTI): Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale on Monday said 1.26 crore voters have been "deleted" from Bihar's electoral rolls following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and challenged the government to a debate on the issue in Parliament.
Sharing the Election Commission's SIR data in a post on X, Gokhale said the poll panel "conveniently" did not share any information regarding its claim of having found foreign nationals in Bihar.
As the month-long first phase of the SIR has concluded, the EC on Sunday said that enumeration forms from 7.24 crore or 91.69 per cent of voters of the state have been received.
It also said 36 lakh people were found to have either permanently shifted from their previous addresses or were not found. It pointed out that seven lakh Bihar voters were found to have enrolled themselves at multiple places.
"ECI has deleted 1.26 crore voters in Bihar from the 2024 Lok Sabha voter list overnight," Gokhale, the TMC Rajya Sabha MP, said on X.
Calling the details revealed by the EC "bizarre", Gokhale pointed out that of a total of 7.90 crore voters, forms have been collected from only 91.69 per cent -- 7.24 crore voters.
"This means that forms were not collected from 65 lakh voters, and they will be deleted. About 22 lakh voters (2.83 per cent) have been deleted because they're claimed to be deceased, about 36 lakh voters (4.59 per cent) have been deleted because they're claimed to be untraceable, and about 7 lakh voters (0.89 per cent) claimed to be found as duplicate entries so half i.e. 3.5 lakh entries deleted," he said.
"ECI has conveniently not disclosed how many voters were found to be non-citizens of India. This is important because ECI had claimed that the SIR was being done to 'remove illegal immigrants'," Gokhale said.
EC sources had earlier said their field-level functionaries found "a large number of people" from Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar during house-to-house visits made for the ongoing intensive review of the voters' list in Bihar.
Gokhale further said the names "deleted" were on the voters' list in the last Lok Sabha polls.
"A total of 1.26 crore voters in Bihar, whose names were on the Lok Sabha 2024 voter list just one year ago, have been deleted from the new voter list," he said.
"To give you a comparable idea, the number of deleted voters in Bihar during the current SIR is equal to the entire combined population of Uttarakhand plus Himachal Pradesh or the entire combined population of all 6 states of the North-East (excluding Assam)," he said.
He said EC needed to answer some questions "urgently".
"The voter list was revised by ECI before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. How on earth did 1.26 crore voters become ineligible in just one year?" he said.
"How many voters has the ECI been unable to reach for collecting their forms? Under the rules of SIR, those whose forms were not collected will be deleted. Therefore, what is the total number of voters whose names have been deleted only because their forms were not collected?" he questioned.
He said the EC has not collected documents along with the forms from all 7.24 crore voters.
"Does this mean that more voters will be deleted if their documents have not been collected with their forms?"
He reiterated West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's statement that the SIR exercise "is NRC by the back door".
"ECI had claimed 'removing foreigners from the voter list' as one of the reasons for conducting this SIR. Why has the ECI not disclosed how many actual 'foreigners' were found and deleted from the voter list during this SIR?" he said.
"It makes zero sense that 12 million people in Bihar have become 'ineligible' voters in just one year between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections till date... When 12 million people in a single state lose the right to vote overnight, it is a serious issue," he said.
He added that the opposition MPs have been pressing for a debate on the issue.
"Why is the Modi Govt so scared to have an open discussion on this in Parliament?" he added.
Meanwhile, the EC has asserted that no names will be deleted from draft rolls without following due process.
VERY IMPORTANT AND SHOCKING
— Saket Gokhale MP (@SaketGokhale) July 28, 2025
ECI has deleted 1.26 CRORE voters in Bihar from the 2024 Lok Sabha voter list OVERNIGHT
Last night, the ECI published details of ongoing "special intensive revision" of the electoral roll being conducted in Bihar. The deadline for collection of forms… pic.twitter.com/E7x2egYfCw
