Supreme Court Extends Deadline for Filing Claims & Objections Till December 31

Supreme Court Extends Deadline for Filing Claims & Objections Till December 31

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday responded to the Assam Government’s plea of extending the deadline for filing claims and objection by around 40 lakh people who were left out of the complete draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) by fixing December 31 as the fresh deadline.

Earlier the apex court fixed December 15 as the deadline for filing claims and objections. The State Government recently submitted a petition of extending the deadline by one month. The court has, however, agreed to extend the deadline by 15 days and fixed December 31 as the last date of filing claims and objections.

The Supreme Court has also responded positively to the plea of All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) to allow people to file objections against inclusion of names of suspected foreigners’ in the complete draft NRC at district headquarters instead of visiting NRC sewa kendras at different places. The AASU said many people are afraid of filing objections by visiting NRC sewa kendras at certain sensitive areas.

For “facilitating the filing of the objections against wrongful inclusion” of names in the draft NRC, the Supreme Court on Wednesday also directed that the copies of the draft NRC be made available for inspection at convenient locations including at the office of the District Magistrate/Deputy Commissioner, Sub-Divisional Offices (Civil), Circle Offices and Gram Panchayats.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman said the issuance of notice to those who filed claims and objections will commence on February 1, 2019, and the verification would be done from February 15.

“The last date for submission of claims and objections fixed on December 15, 2018, is extended to December 31, 2018. Consequently, the process of commencement of verification scheduled earlier on February 1, 2019, is shifted to February 15, 2019,” the court said in its order.

The court ordered the availability of the copies of the draft NRC at convenient locations after an applicant said that there were fewer objections against the wrongful inclusions as they were not aware of the names included in the draft NRC.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday made it clear that “the List B documents that are found to be legally valid be accepted regardless of the date of issuance of the same”. The court, however, said the “acceptance (of List B documents) would be on adequate and full satisfaction of the concerned NRC authority who will be free to act on the basis of such satisfaction”.

The court ordered the acceptance of List B document without any cut-off date as senior counsel Kapil Sibal drew the attention of the court that List B documents that were issued post August 31, 2015 were not being entertained by the NRC authorities. Sibal had appeared in the court on behalf of the All Assam Minorities Students’ Union and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind.

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