Supreme Court Orders Filing of Claims in Assam NRC to Begin on September 25

Guwahati: In a decision pertaining to the NRC process in Assam, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the resuming of filing of claims and objections by those who have been left out in the draft Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The Supreme Court today directed that the filing of claims related to the final draft of the Assam NRC would begin on September 25 and will go on for next 60 days.

Shortly after the order was passed by the Supreme Court today, a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman told media persons that, “We are of the view that all that which we are required to do at this stage is to open the filing of claims and objections with regard to inclusion in the draft NRC published in July this year.”

Also, the top court clarified its stand that the second opportunity has been granted to the citizens keeping in mind the “magnitude” of the issue.

Furthermore, the elite bench has now sought the view of the State Coordinator of Assam NRC, Prateek Hajela regarding the point of view of the central government with regard to applicability and non-applicability of certain documents for inclusion of left out names in the final draft of the NRC.

It may be mentioned that following the second and final draft of the NRC, published on July 30, a 2.89 crore out of the total 3.29 crore applicants were included in the final NRC list.

Tension gripped Assam as a whooping 40.07 lakh applicants did not find a place in the historic NRC document.

However, the Supreme Court earlier on September 5 had ordered that any one of the 10 of a total 15 documents provided in List-A of the claim form can be used by the claimants to prove legacy. The Supreme Court also expressed reservation over sharing with the Centre the copy of the NRC Coordinator’s report on the modalities for receiving claims from those excluded in draft NRC, saying that although the Government of India was “extremely interested”, the court “has to strike a balance”.