2020 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 2(2) The Supreme Court took up the petition in 2013 and directed the Governments of India and Assam to begin the process for updating the NRC under its oversight. 167 In February 2015, the Assam state government initiated the process of updating the National Registry of Citizens, requiring every person in Assam who claimed Indian citizenship to submit proof of their ancestry (or birth) in the country predating 1971. The final National Registry of Citizens list was published on 31 August 2019. It left out of it as many as 1.9 million Assam residents, leaving them stateless. All residents not appearing in the final National Registry of Citizens published in August 2019 are required to appear before 120 days before ‘Foreigner Tribunals’ which would ascertain whether they are nationals (with non-nationals subject to detention and expulsion). The number of Foreigner Tribunals has increased exponentially, and the standard criteria of legal experience and the quality of their procedures has been lowered. Overall, the procedure followed is in essence administrative violence: an arbitrary and discriminatory process against Muslims of Bengali descent. 168 Moreover, in its August 2019 Assam Public Works v Union of India decision, drawing from s 3(1)c of the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955, the Supreme Court interpreted the deprivation of nationality as covering a) children of ‘D Voter’ (doubtful voters); 169 and b) those declared to be foreigners and/or whose cases were pending before a Foreigners Tribunal. 170 The section excludes a child born to an ‘illegal immigrant’ parent from acquiring Indian citizenship. Specifically, it held that for people born after 3 December 2004, if one of their parents belonged to one of these three categories, they would not be included in the National Registry of Citizens, notwithstanding the status of the second parent. This judgment has been viewed by Amnesty International as breaching the principle of retroactivity as well as the protections against statelessness contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 171 As Amnesty International and 124 other civil society organisations stated in September 2019: requiring individuals to prove their citizenship by providing documentary evidence dating back over 50 years, and excluding applicants on the basis of not being able to fulfil this evidentiary burden that sits solely on them, is an act of mass-arbitrary deprivation of nationality, contrary to art 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 172 Indeed, it was a massive exercise of administrative violence towards minorities. 167 Indian Citizenship Act, 1955 (n 140) art 6A. 168 Designed to Exclude (n 151) 4. 169 Assam Public Works v Union of India [13 August 2019] Case No WP(C) 274/2009 (Supreme Court of India) [1], citing Assam Public Works v Union of India [23 July 2019] Case No WP(C) 274/2009 (Supreme Court of India) [7]. 170 ibid. 171 Designed to Exclude (n 151) 15, citing Convention on the Rights of the Child, opened for signature 20 November 1989, 1577 UNTS 3 (entered into force 2 September 1990) art 8. 172 ‘Joint Statement: 125 Civil Society Organisations Condemn the Exclusion of 1.9 Million Persons from the Assam National Registry of Citizens’ Amnesty International (Statement, 6 September 2019) <https://amnesty.org.in/news-update/amnesty-india-joint-statement-tocondemn-the-exclusion-of-1-9-million-people-from-the-assam-nrc/>, citing Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA Res 217A (III), UN GAOR, 3rd sess, 183rd plen mtg, UN Doc A/810 (10 December 1948) art 15. 218