AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi says that the Centre’s proposal for a unified database of births, deaths will be used for NPR, NRC.
Asaduddin Owaisi stressed that the amendment to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, will allow the Centre to create a unified database of all registered births and deaths (National Population Register) and NRC (National Register of Citizens) and violate Article 324 of the Constitution.
The Center says that this amendment will enable them to create a unified database of all registered births and deaths. Currently, this is carried out by states.
Taking to Twitter, Owaisi stated, “The unified database will be used for NPR-NRC, electoral rolls, passports, etc. Currently, these are all separate processes. For example, electoral roll enrolment is done by an INDEPENDENT body, ECI. Now the Union govt can allow birth/death register to be used for enrolment(sic).”
In a subsequent tweet, he asserted, “This violates Article 324 of the Constitution that gives independence to ECI (Election Commission of India). It also violates the Constitution as the NPR rules are themselves unconstitutional and data should not be collected under it. (sic).”
Owaisi said that the Puttaswamy judgment had struck down attempts to link Aadhar with telecom and banking services. However, now it was being used to expand the use of birth and death registration to Aadhar, voter enrolment, NPR, and so on.
He expressed, “The right to privacy includes the right to be protected from such acts where data is collected for one purpose (in this case, birth registration) and to use it for other purposes not expressly authorized by the person giving their data (NPR, voter enrolment, etc).”
“Registration of births and deaths falls in the concurrent list. Currently, states have the power to collect this data, why is this power being taken away? Why are states not opposing it? (sic)”
Owaisi also asked how many would get excluded if this was used for proving citizenship or enrolment on the electoral rolls. “Remember, proof of citizenship requires you to not only prove that YOU were born in India but also that your parents are Indian. How will you do it when no doc is proof enough?” he stated.
The AIMIM chief further said that “82.3 percent of children under the age of five in the richest wealth group possessed a birth certificate, while only 40.7% in the poorest wealth group did”. The poor (majority of whom are Muslims, STs, SCs and OBCs) will suffer the most because of this, he said.
A new Section 3A is proposed to be inserted in the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, which says, “The Registrar General, India shall maintain the database of registered births and deaths at the national level, that may be used, with the approval of the Central government, to update the Population Register prepared under the Citizenship Act, 1955; electoral registers or electoral rolls prepared under the Representation of the People Act, 1951; Aadhaar database prepared under the Aadhaar Act, 2016; ration card database prepared under the National Food Security Act, 2013; passport database prepared under the Passport Act; and the driving license database under the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, and other databases at the national level subject to the proviso of Section 17 (1) of the RBD Act, 1969.”
The implementation of this act is sparking up comments from people who are in favor of these bills to remark that the “CAA, NRC, NPR will be implemented in the country and infiltrators will not be allowed to stay, Bangladeshi, Burma, Myanmar Muslims should go away on their own.”
In the long run, a lot of citizens could also be marked out as noncitizens under a bracket from neighboring countries, especially if Indian citizens have lost their birth certificates and misplaced land papers. The whole implementation of the act is going to raise upheavals again.
See his video below:
मोदी हुकूमत एक मन्सूबा-बंद तरीक़े से पूरे देश में #NRC और #NPR लागू करने की तैयारी कर रही है। https://t.co/536xtq0uZq
— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) November 1, 2021