by Nava Thakuria 23 November 2023
After years of allegations over the National Register of Citizens (NRC)
update exercise in Assam, the court proceedings begin against the
former State coordinator Prateek Hajela (for his involvement with a
financial scam to the tune of over 155 crores), the system integrator
(Wipro limited) and a subcontractor Integrated System and Services
(ISS). Hajela, who had already got voluntary retirement from the
service under Assam government, was recently summoned by the Kamrup
(metro) district & sessions court to appear on 17 November, but he
failed to do so. The district court in Guwahati then fixed 6 February
2024 for the next hearing and it even allowed the petitioner Luit
Kumar Barman to bring the matter to the retired IAS officer’s notice
(as he is a resident of Madhya Pradesh) through
newspaper-advertisements.
Barman, an Assamese entrepreneur turned award winning film producer,
prepared for the advertisement to be published in two national dailies
(one in English and another Hindi) and two widely circulated
newspapers of Assam and MP. However, Hajela responded to the concerned
court through his counsel on 21 November with an appeal to cancel the
permission for newspaper advertisements. The counsel informed that
Hajela had already come to know about the summon from various social
media posts. He also appealed to the court to allow Hajela to file an
affidavit. So Barman now waits for a new direction from the court.
Wipro limited, the Indian IT company of international repute, had
already submitted an affidavit through its representatives. But the
ISS (represented by proprietor Utpal Hazarika) was not served the
summon duly and the court directed the petitioner Barman to take
necessary steps. Both Wipro and ISS face serious allegations of
tempering software in the process to allow thousands of illegal
Bangladeshi nationals to apply for Indian citizenship.
Barman lodged a complaint at a city police station on 19 October
against Hajela, Wipro limited and the ISS for their suspected roles in
money laundering as indicated by the Comptroller and Auditor General
of India (CAG) report on social, economic and general sectors for the
year ending on 31 March 2020. Even though the CAG pointed out
irregularities in the NRC updating process in Assam (from May 2014 to
October 2019) and recommended penal actions against Hajela and Wipro
limited, the FIR was not registered.
The complainant then sent an electronic mail (on 17 March 2023) to the
city police commissioner, but that too went in vain. Later Barman
approached the court of Kamrup (metro) chief judicial magistrate and
the CJM too refused to entertain his appeal for justice over the
sensitive issue associating millions of genuine residents of Assam.
Then Barman approached the district sessions court. He introduced two
important witnesses namely Hitesh Devsarma (a retired IAS officer) and
Aabhijeet Sarma (president of Assam Public Works, which is the
original petitioner in the Supreme Court of India for updation of 1951
NRC in Assam).
Both Devsarma (who was the immediate successor of Hajela as NRC State
coordinator) and Sarma had already lodged three FIRs against Hajela
alleging financial mismanagements, intentional inclusion of illegal
migrant’s names in NRC draft and lowly paying of over 6000 contractual
data entry operators (DEOs). Needless to mention that the DEOs, some
of whom were paid as low as Rs 5,500 (per month per person), are still
deprived of their dues. Their cumulative dues will be around Rs 100
crores, which was syphoned by the concerned agencies out of the total
expenditure (Rs 1600 crores) sanctioned by the NRC authority.
Amidst the debate of NRC scam, the social media users named and shamed
three Guwahati-based television journalists as beneficiaries of it.
Those scribes are understood to be involved in supplying DEOs to the
ISS and subsequently benefited themselves by illegal means. People of
Assam still remember how some television anchors lavishly praised
Hajela as an outstanding officer and whimsically pronounced the NRC
draft as final one, even though it’s yet to be endorsed by the
Registrar General of India. However, the social media users were
unanimous in their views that DEOs must be financially compensated
under the laws. Expressing concern over the development, Journalists’
Forum Assam urged the local news channel managements to clarify that
no journalist of their organisations was involved with the scam,
failing it, the audience may perceive the entire media as a corrupt
fraternity.
Days back, nationalist body Bharat Raksha Manch (BRM) urged Assam
chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to approve all five FIRs against
Hajela to be registered against the NRC scam-stars. It also appealed
to the State government to file an affidavit before the SC seeking for
a complete re-verification of the NRC draft with the base year of 1951
(instead of 1971). The State unit of BRM under the leadership of
Dwijendra N Barthakur even organised a protest demonstration in the
city on 2 October demanding due legal actions against Hajela and other
individuals, who are involved with the NRC updation scam.
While talking to this writer, Barman asserted that he pursues no
personal enmity towards Hajela, but he has taken it as a cause for the
nation. He informed that thousands of his friends & social media users
extended monetary contributions for the initiative. The total money
collected from the crowd funding was planned to be used for the
advertisements, but now Barman decides to return the money to every
contributor. The engineer turned entrepreneur remains excited to
reveal that overwhelming responses from the common people indicate the
matter as of serious concern without any doubt.
The writer is a northeast Bharat-based senior media columnist