NRC: SC asks Centre, Assam to behave like a ''State'' and not an ''individual''

Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 23

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre and Assam government to respond by October 30 to a report filed by the state's NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela on why five additional documents should not be allowed to be relied upon for claims for inclusion in Draft NRC.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogogi and Justice Rohinton F Nariman asked Hajela to give a PowerPoint presentation to all the stakeholders, including Assam government and the Centre, on his report on October 26 and fixed November 1 for a full-day hearing.

During the hearing Attorney General KK Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta tried to impress upon the court to allow some of these documents to be used for filing of claims by people who relied on some other documents under a bonafide belief that the latter were better documents but didn't succeed. They said it could be done without allowing them to change their family tree.

"Behave like a State and not an individual," CJI Gogoi told the Centre and Assam Government.

In his report submitted to the top court, Hajela suggested five documents that should not be allowed for filing of claims for inclusion in the NRC.

The five documents are ration card, citizenship certificate and refugee registration certificate, NRC, 1951, Electoral Roll up to March 24, 1971 and certified copies of pre-1971 Electoral Roll, particularly those issued from the state of Tripura.

Relying on these five documents cannot be permitted as their "introduction now will create problems", Hajela said.

Out of the 40 lakh people left out, only a few lakh have so far filed their claims, the court was informed.

The Supreme Court had on September 19 directed the Assam NRC coordinator to commence the process for filing of claims and objections for inclusion in the Final Draft NRC from September 25.

The Final Draft NRC list was published on July 30 in which 2.89 crore names out of the 3.29 crore people were included while 40,70,707 people failed to make it to the list. Of those left out 37,59,630 names had been rejected and the remaining 2,48,077 were put on hold.

The top court had said those left out of the Draft NRC can rely on 10 of the 15 documents prescribed. Window for filing of claims and objections shall remain open for 60 days, it had said, adding the second opportunity had been granted to the citizens keeping in mind the "magnitude" of the issue.

"We are not shutting out the rest of the five documents. All that we are saying is that at this stage claims and objections shall be filed on the basis of 10 documents," it had said.

The 10 documents which can be relied upon for filing of claims and objections are: Land documents like Registered Sale Deed, Records of land rights, permanent Residential Certificate issued from outside the State, passport issued by the Government of India, LIC Insurance Policy, any licence/certificate issued by any government authority, document showing service/employment under Government/Public Sector undertaking, Bank/Post Office Accounts, Birth certificates issued by competent authority, educational certificate issued by Board/Universities and records/processes pertaining to court provided they are part of a processing in a judicial or revenue court.

The documents shall be acceptable only if they were of relevant period i.e. up to March 24, 1971 (midnight).

The Bench had then said it will consider after a month whether to allow the other five documents as well or not.