Nearly seven years after the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam was published, the exercise is at a standstill — neither have identity cards been issued for those included, nor has the the appeal process begun for those excluded.A Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi, has issued notice on a writ petition filed by the Assam State Jamiat Ulama that seeks directions to the Centre to finish these last statutory steps.More than 3.11 crore people whose names appear in the NRC have not received their national identity cards. Around 19 lakh people excluded from the register have been unable to challenge that exclusion, because they were never issued rejection slips stating the reasons. The petition says that this “inaction has converted a court-sanctioned exercise meant to restore confidence into a discriminatory regime that singles out the people of Assam for perpetual suspicion and denial of closure. This offends both the federal principle and the guarantee of equal citizenship”.Why was the NRC updated only in Assam?The exercise, which has its roots in the Assam Accord of 1985, fixed March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for identifying illegal migrants who entered the state from Bangladesh. Parliament gave this legal shape through Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, a provision that applies only to Assam. Applicants had to prove citizenship using “legacy data”, mainly the 1951 NRC and electoral rolls up to the 1971 cut-off, plus documents showing lineage to those records. The final list came out on August 31, 2019, with 3.11 crore included, and 19 lakh excluded.Why the petition says the process is incompleteThe petition’s core argument is that publishing the list was only half the process. Two things were legally supposed to follow. Story continues below this adFirst, Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, which makes it compulsory for the Centre to register every citizen and issue an identity card. This is read with Rule 13 of the 2003 Rules, which requires the Registrar General to issue identity cards to everyone on the final list once it is published. Second, Paragraph 8 of the Schedule to Rule 4A sets out how excluded persons are meant to get rejection slips so that they can appeal to Foreigners Tribunals.Also Read | Passport isn’t proof of citizenship. Was the NRC supposed to be?Neither of these things took place. The petition frames this gap as unconstitutional, a violation of Articles 14 and 21, because it leaves the exercise permanently unfinished for both categories of people years after the deadline for finishing it effectively passed.It also brings in Article 355, which states that is it the “duty of the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the Government of every State is carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution”, arguing that the uncertainty around who counts as included or excluded has itself become a source of social friction in Assam rather than resolving one. Story continues below this adThe petition states that “the prolonged suspension of the NRC process, coupled with lack of clarity about the legal status of millions of residents, amounts to abdication of this duty and has contributed to deepening divisions rather than reconciliation”.Further, the delay in continuing the process amounts to more than bureaucratic inertia. Because the NRC was built and published under continuous Supreme Court supervision from 2013 to 2019, treating the follow-through steps as optional undercuts the binding nature of the court’s own orders under Articles 141 and 144. The plea says that “selective compliance with only those stages of the NRC which suit executive convenience is antithetical to the rule of law and erodes public confidence in the judicial process itself”.Why rejection slips matterBeing excluded from the NRC doesn’t mean someone has been declared a foreigner. The law gives them a right to contest that exclusion before a Foreigners Tribunal. But that right only works if the person knows what evidence was used against them and why their claim failed, which is exactly what a rejection slip is supposed to spell out. Also Read | NRC, farm laws to Pradhan exit: The three times Modi government has retreatedWithout it, the petition argues, there’s no way to build an appeal, and the clock that’s meant to start the appeal window never starts either. It argues: “By refusing to grant documentary recognition to NRC-included citizens, the Respondents have effectively reduced them to ‘non-persons’, deprived of full participation in civil life, voting rights, employment, and welfare benefits. This denial is a form of civil disenfranchisement, striking at the dignity and liberty guaranteed under Article 21 and is against the assurances of the Governments at State and Central levels.”Story continues below this adNearly 19 lakh people are described as stuck this way who are technically entitled to appeal but practically unable to. Without knowing the grounds of rejection, the state has “condemned individuals to a state of limbo, subjected to stigma, suspicion, and social exclusion without a fair hearing”.Why the identity cards matterDespite completing what it calls the country’s most rigorous citizenship verification exercise, those included, around 3.11 crore, have received no statutory recognition thus creating “a class of ‘citizens without recognition,’” left under a continuing “cloud of suspicion.” Also Read | How Ambedkar grappled with Assam’s citizenship questionDrawing on E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu, where the SC held that “equality is antithetic to arbitrariness” and that “equality and arbitrariness are sworn enemies,” the petition states that withholding cards from persons already verified through a court-supervised process is, on this reading, “arbitrary, oppressive, and unconstitutional,” and violative of Article 14 of the ConstitutionThe cost argumentThe petition points to the scale of over 3.3 crore applicants verified over the years, under direct SC monitoring, at a cost above Rs 1,600 crore. Story continues below this adHaving gone through all of that, it argues, the government can’t now treat the remaining, comparatively simple steps- printing cards, issuing slips — as dispensable. The petition also points to a September 2019 statement by the Ministry of External Affairs, issued after the Final NRC’s publication, assuring that exclusion would not affect anyone’s rights until all legal remedies were exhausted. Those remedies, the petition argues, have stayed out of reach precisely because rejection slips were never issued.