NRC head in Assam files FIR against former co-ordinator Prateek Hajela charging anti-national act

The office of the NRC coordinator in Assam on Friday lodged an FIR against former coordinator and IAS officer, Prateek Hajela charging him with committing an "anti-national act" for allegedly facilitating the entry of names of ineligible persons as Indian nationals in the document.

Hajela had served as the state co-ordinator between 2013 and October 2019 and led the NRC exercise, which was carried out under the supervision of the Supreme Court. Hajela, however, was deputed to Madhya Pradesh by the Supreme Court in October 2019, for three years.

The NRC list was updated with March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date with an aim to segregate the post-1971 migrants and find a solution to Assam's long foreigner problem.

In the FIR lodged with CID, Assam, the present state coordinator of NRC Hitesh Dev Sarma has stated, “it is suspected that despite the mandate of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India for an error-free NRC, the then State Coordinator, NRC Sri Prateek Hajela may have intentionally avoided the mandatory quality check by ordering the use of a software which prevented quality check and facilitated entry of names of an ineligible person into the NRC which can be seen as an anti-national act affecting the national security.”

The FIR alleged that Hajela did not allow a quality check of the documents which were filed by the applicants during the "family tree" verification exercise. "In case of the document verification of NRC, which was done prior to the family tree matching phase, there was a provision of 5% to 10% quality checks by the deputy commissioners, additional deputy commissioners and the circle officers. But surprisingly, in the family tree matching phase, no order of quality check was ordered by the then state coordinator nor the software had any scope of quality checks. Rather the software was so prepared to avoid any quality checks giving the verifying officers of doubtful integrity a free hand to upload wrong results to fulfill their vested interest," said the FIR, a copy of which is with DH.

The "family tree" was prepared by the NRC office through software based on the details and documents submitted by applicants to prove their links with their parents or grandparents having pre-1971 documents.

Over 19.06 lakh persons out of 3.29 crore applicants did not figure in the final list of the NRC, which was released in August 2019. BJP-led government in Assam refused to accept the NRC list and moved the Supreme Court seeking re-verification of the multi-crore exercise.

After Hajela was sent on deputation, Hitesh Dev Sharma was appointed as the new state coordinator.

Hajela could not be contacted on Friday for his reaction regarding the allegations.

The FIR also named a few other officers and data entry operators who are alleged to have “conspired” along with Hajela.