Nine lakh people in Assam were denied Aadhaar for years. It turned out to be a mistake

In 2018, Salima Begum, a 43-year-old domestic worker from Guwahati, found herself excluded from the draft of the National Register of Citizens in Assam.

The NRC was updated in Assam between 2015 and 2019 to identify undocumented immigrants in the state – a process supervised by the Supreme Court. The draft excluded 40 lakh people, who had submitted documents in support of their citizenship claims.

But Begum, like them, had a second chance to prove herself a citizen of India – by taking part in the claims and objection process.

While doing so, she submitted her biometric data to the state home department authorities. The data was captured with the help of the Unique Identification Authority of India, the statutory body that issues Aadhaar numbers.

Begum, an Assamese Muslim, made it to the final draft of the NRC. However, for five years, she could not get an Aadhaar card.

Without it, Begum was denied access to crucial welfare schemes – such as the state government programme that transfers Rs 1,250 every month to eligible women – microfinance loans, and even food rations. All of these needed her bank account to be linked to an Aadhaar number.

She was not alone. For over five years, lakhs of people in Assam struggled to get Aadhaar cards. Their biometrics, collected during the claims and objections process, had been locked by the UIDAI, following a Supreme Court order.

On August 28, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the Centre has decided to unlock the biometrics of 9.35 lakh people which were locked during the NRC process. This would enable them to get Aadhaar cards and “allow them to avail all government benefits, scholarships and welfare initiatives seamlessly”, he said.

Soon after, on September 16, Salima Begum and her son finally got their Aadhaar identity numbers.

“If it was so easy, why did they not provide Aadhaar sooner?” she asked. “We have been harassed and deprived of our rights. Where is the accountability? What was Himanta doing for the last five years?”

As Begum pointed out, several questions remain unanswered about the entire exercise. For one, why exactly were biometrics of 9 lakh people locked by the UIDAI? A senior government official, who requested not to be identified, told Scroll that a “misinterpretation” of a Supreme Court order had resulted in this logjam.

Scroll also emailed UIDAI officials with queries on the unlocking process. The story will be updated if they respond.

The history of a mess

When those excluded in the draft of the NRC were allowed to present their claims again, the Assam government and the NRC coordinator decided that their biometric data would be collected by the home department in collaboration with the Unique Identification Authority of India.

A standard operating procedure was issued for this purpose.

“Once the final NRC has been published, such persons who are included in the NRC will be given the usual Aadhaar number as applicable to legal residents in the country,” said a document laying out the procedure for claims and objections. This procedure was approved by the Supreme Court in November 2018.

Behind this decision was the apprehension of Assamese nationalist groups that ineligible people or “illegal migrants” will get Aadhaar cards. Even though the Aadhaar is not considered a citizenship document, in response to such fears, the Centre had halted registrations in Assam in 2017, when just 7% of the population had been enrolled.

A senior home department official, who was also associated with the NRC process, said the idea behind capturing biometrics was to track those finally excluded from the register of citizens.

The biometrics collected between February and August 2019 period – in the run-up to the publication of the final NRC on August 31, 2019 – were stored on UIDAI servers.

However, even after the final NRC was published, the biometric data was not released.

In 2022, the Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev filed a public interest litigation before the Supreme Court seeking Aadhaar cards for those people who were included in the NRC but were not being assigned a unique identity number.

In its reply to the petition, on October 13, 2022, the Centre told the court, “On publication of the final NRC, such persons who are included in the NRC will be given an Aadhaar number as per the SOP approved by this Hon’ble Court.” But, as the application receipt numbers of those who had made it to the NRC had not been shared with the UIDAI, the central government said it had “kept on hold the issuance of the Aadhaar to such persons”. Scroll has seen the Centre’s affidavit.

‘We were mistaken’

So what changed three years later to allow the biometric data to be unlocked?

On July 27, officials of the state home department made a presentation before the central government on the Aadhaar challenge in Assam, arguing that it had misinterpreted the Supreme Court’s directions on the standard operating procedure.

“We were mistaken on this judicial aspect,” said the senior home department official quoted earlier, who was present at the July meeting.

The official told Scroll that the standard operating procedure was based on an “interim” order for the claims and objection process, and ceased to exist on the day the NRC was published.

“The Supreme Court order of August 13, 2019 superseded the series of interim orders for completing the NRC updation process and ending the operation of SOP meant for the disposal of claims and objections,” the home department official said. “The order did not mention anything about Aadhaar enrollment, let alone withholding the Aadhaar cards.”

The official blamed the blocking of biometric data on an “erroneous” interpretation or “misinterpretation” of the Supreme Court’s directions. “The fallout of this whole mess of the decision of UIDAI to withhold Aadhaar cards has deprived 9.35 lakh people of basic entitlements and rights,” he said.

While explaining the UIDAI’s decision to keep biometrics locked, the Union government had invoked Para 9 of the standard operating procedure, which says that those included in the NRC will be given an Aadhaar number after the final list was published.

In its presentation, the senior home department official said the state government told the Centre that Aadhaar has nothing to do with citizenship – and so the biometric data must be unlocked.

“To say that only those included in the NRC will get the Aadhaar violates the Aadhaar Act,” the official claimed.

Any person who has resided in India for “182 days or more in the 12 months immediately preceding the date of application for enrolment” is eligible for Aadhaar, whether or not they are citizens of India. However, though Aadhaar can be provided to non-citizens after the defined period, it cannot be issued to “illegal immigrants” or undocumented migrants as per a Supreme Court order.

The ‘fiction’ of 27 lakh

Another puzzling aspect is the number of people whose biometric data had been locked.

In the last three years, the Assam government repeatedly told the state assembly that 27.43 lakh people submitted their biometric data while appearing for NRC re-verification. They even provided a district-wise break-up of people whose biometric data was blocked.

However, the home department official said, “The biometrics of 27 lakh people were never collected. That was a fiction created by someone.”

Last month, the Registrar General of India in an official communique had informed the Assam government that 9.35 lakh people of the state – who had failed to get their Aadhaar cards because their biometrics were locked – will now be able to get unique identity numbers.

The senior home department official, also associated with the NRC process, told Scroll that the target was to capture biometrics of 40 lakh people – those who failed to make it to the NRC draft published in 2018 – but only 9.35 lakh gave their biometrics.

“Out of the 40 lakh, about 5 lakh people did not file any claims,” the official explained. “And of the 35 lakh, more than half of them already had Aadhaar cards and so their biometrics were not captured. There were many people whose biometrics did not get captured because of faulty machines and human errors too.”

The Assam chief minister, too, admitted the mistake. “We had an assumption that the Unique Identification Authority of India had blocked access to Aadhaar cards for about 27 lakh people. Now they [UIDAI] told us the figure was 9,35,682,” he said.

Observers pointed out that this mismatch was typical of the Aadhaar process.

“The CM may have hit on something that many of us have been saying for many years now: the UID system does not worry itself about the information on its database being authentic,” said Usha Ramanathan, a lawyer and researcher who has been critical of the Aadhaar project since its inception.

“The UIDAI verifies nothing,” said Ramanathan, referring to a 2022 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General on the privacy safeguards of the project. “As the CAG reported, UID numbers were generated with incomplete documents and poor quality biometrics, resulting in multiple and duplicate numbers,” Ramanathan said.

Those excluded from the NRC

The UIDAI order also unlocked the data of those among the 9.3 lakh people who did not make it to the NRC.

“For five years, the state government maintained wrongly that the government cannot release Aadhaar without leave of the court,” an advocate, who asked not to be identified, said. “But now, Aadhaar has been released for all, including for NRC-excluded persons, on the recommendation of the state,” the advocate said.

For example, Sanjoy Dey and his son Anoowabh Dey, residents of Karimganj town in Barak Valley, had not made it to the final NRC. In 2022, they approached Gauhati High Court seeking both the NRC rejection order and directions to issue Aadhaar cards.

As the NRC has not been notified, those excluded from it remain in a limbo. Without rejection orders, they cannot appeal the decision in foreigners’ tribunals, quasi-judicial bodies that rule on citizenship disputes in Assam.

“The case is still pending in the court,” Champa Dey, Sanjoy Dey’s wife, told Scroll.

After the chief minister’s announcement, Champa checked with a nearest Aadhaar Kendra and realised that Aadhaar cards had been generated in her husband and son’s names. For her husband, it was too late – Sanjoy Dey died on April 2, 2024.