SC Extends Date For Filing NRC Claims in Assam to Dec 15, Approves 5 More Documents

A week after a retired school teacher committed suicide reportedly due to humiliation of being declared a 'foreigner', the Supreme Court on Thursday extended the last date for filing of claims under the National Registry of Citizens (NRC) in Assam to December 15. The earlier deadline for filing claims and objections for over 40 lakh people left out of the final NRC draft was November 25.

 

This was the third case of suicide after the draft NRC was made public, excluding 40 lakh people, according to an NDTV report.

 

After December 15, the notices to claimants would be issued till January 15, 2019. The commencement of verification of their claims would commence from April 1, 2019, said a report in The Hindu.

 

On Thursday, a Special Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Rohinton F. Nariman also allowed claimants to use five more documents to prove their legacy.

 

The documents are: the NRC, 1951; names in electoral roll up to March 24, 1971; citizenship certificate; refugee registration certificate; certified copies of pre-1971 electoral roll, particularly, those issued from the State of Tripura; and ration card.

 

"Any of these five documents can now be used for claimants to prove their Indian legacy in the ongoing claims and objections process," The Hindu report said.

 

In a big relief for hapless citizens of Assam, who have been protesting ever since, the bench disagreed with State NRC Co-ordinator Prateek Hajela's conclusion that these five documents can be easily forged, and thus, should not be permitted for use by claimants to prove their Indian citizenship.

 

"We do not think you are right, Mr. Hajela," Justice Nariman told the co-ordinator, as per The Hindu.

 

Justice Gogoi held that the mere possibility that these documents could be used by ineligible persons could not be a ground for barring them for use by genuine claimants, adding that these five records should be subjected to multiple and vigorous verification and tasked Hajela to prepare the groundwork for such a verification process.

 

The five documents are part of  the total of 15 documents listed by the Centre in its draft Standard Operating Procedure for vetting the claims and objections.Earlier, the court has put these five documents

in a "suspect list" after Hajela filed a report on October 4 saying there was a possibility these could be forged.

 

The draft NRC has created an outrage in Assam with various citizens groups and opposition parties holding protests and dharnas against exclusion of over 40 lakh people from the list.

 

According to a report in The Telegraph, the All Assam Students’ Union and 28 other organisations on Wednesday also demanded that BJP leader and Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal clear his stand on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The organisations announced a series of agitations opposing the proposed legislation which the Narendra Modi government plans to table the Bill in the Winter session of Parliament due to be held in later this month.

 

The Bill seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014, and is currently being reviewed by a joint parliamentary committee.