NRC: Centre submits SOP to SC for claims, objections

The Centre on Tuesday submitted to the Supreme Court the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for deciding claims and objections of around 40 lakh people who have not been included in the final draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) published on July 30.

In the 19-page affidavit containing the SOP, the Centre said while a claim for inclusion can only be made by the person concerned, the objection to inclusion of a name in the draft NRC could be made by any person.

Also there is no restriction on filing any number of objections to the names for inclusion in the draft NRC.

The SOP further says that there would be "no penalty for rejection of an application made in respect of objection for inclusion of a name in the draft NRC."

During the course of the hearing, the Assam government along with the Unique Identification Authority of India will undertake the process of biometric enrolment of all the NRC applicants.

The biometric enrolment of persons who would be making claims for inclusion and those who are objected to will be distinctive. Separate IDs will be generated for those individuals.

The entire exercise would witness involvement of 2500 class-I officers with five hearings per day and eight per day in the case of children in the age group of 14 years or less.

The actual hearing on the claims and objects would commence from December 15.

The government has said that the timelines for the disposal of claims and objections would be known only after their actual numbers are known.

The SOP has been prepared following the top court's order that the process of disposal off claims and objection by 40 lakh people and others should be transparent and reasonable.

The process of inviting claims and objections, whose first stage started on August 10, will conclude on August 19.

From August 20 till August 29 the blank claim/objections forms would be made available to the public.

The actual receipt of the claims and objections would begin from August 30 and will continue till October 28. For two months, starting September 15 to November 20, there would be digitization and processing of the forms.

Notices to those making claims and objections would start from November 20 and conclude on November 30.

--IANS

pk/prs/bg