No coercive action against anyone on basis of draft NRC of Assam: SC

The Supreme Court today said there will be no coercive action by authorities against over 40 lakh people, whose names do not figure in Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC), observing that it was merely a draft.

The top court asked the Centre to formulate modalities and the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) including timelines for deciding claims and objections arising out of the publication of the draft NRC.

A bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman asked the Centre to submit the modalities and SOPs before it for approval within August 16.

"This court would like to observe that what has been published is only a complete draft NRC, which naturally being a draft cannot be a basis for any coercive action by any authority," the bench said.

It said that the modalities and SOPs prepared by ministry concerned of government of India should be "fair and giving reasonable opportunity to everyone".

The bench said under the rules, the local registrar is first required to issue notice to file claim and objections to the draft NRC and then give a reasonable hearing after providing equal opportunity to all.

At the outset, NRC Assam coordinator Prateek Hajela placed before the court its status report giving details of publication of the draft NRC yesterday.

The report said that out of 3.29 crore people, names of 2.89 crore have been included in the draft NRC. It further said that names of 40,70,707 people do not figure in the list. Of the these, 37,59,630 names have been rejected and the remaining 2,48,077 are on hold.

To this, the bench asked Hajela, what was the future course of action after the publication of draft NRC.

He informed the court that the claims and objections regarding inclusion and exclusion in the NRC could be filed from August 30 to September 28.

He said till August 7, the draft NRC will be displayed or made available to them through seva kendras.

"From August 8, 2018, onwards the people who have been left out of the second draft can approach the local registrar or the NRC seva kendra to find out the reasons for their non-inclusion," he said.

The bench then asked Hajela about the local registrars and of which level these officers are.

He said that these local registrars are gazetted officers taken from different departments for NRC works.

"You should place before court, how do you propose to do the exercise of claims and objections as it has to be a fair procedure and the persons aggrieved should be given fair opportunity," the bench said.

Hajela replied that he will hold discussions with Registrar General of India and would work out the modalities and it will be placed before the court for approval.

The bench said, "We read it somewhere that you have fixed December 31, as a deadline for publication of final NRC."