NRC Assam: Children excluded from final list won’t be sent to detention camps

January 06: Attorney General KK Venugopal on Monday told the Supreme Court that children who have been excluded from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam despite their parents finding a place in the list will not be sent to detention centers till the court decides a petition concerning the same.

A three-judge bench comprising of Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant heard the plea filed by an organization wherein they complained that 60 children were lodged in detention centres because their citizenship was yet to be established. The application also stated that one or both the parents of these 60 children had made it to the NRC.

Venugopal appearing for the Government of India said, “I cannot conceive children being sent to detention centres. Children whose parents have been included in NRC will not be sent to detention centres for now.”

Exclusion of children from NRC even when their parents were included, the petitioner said, is in contravention of the state’s obligation towards children as envisaged under the Constitution of India, and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.