SC asks Assam NRC coordinator to submit district-wise percentage of excluded people

The Supreme Court today asked the Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) coordinator to place before it the data of district-wise percentage of population excluded from the NRC draft in the state.

A bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi, Navin Sinha and K M Joseph sought the response of all the stakeholders including All Assam Students Union, All Assam Minority Students Union on the Centre's Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on the NRC issue.

It directed the state NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela to make available the copies of draft NRC at all panchayat offices so that public can access it easily.

The apex court said that the claim and objection forms on the Assam NRC issue will be made available to the general public from August 20.

It also said that the receipt of claim and objection forms from the public will commence on August 30.

The court posted the matter for further hearing on August 28.

On August 14, the Centre had told the apex court that distinct IDs will be created by collecting biometric details of 40 lakh people filing claims and objections with respect to the NRC.

It said that after the publication of the final list of NRC, those people whose names will figure in it will be given usual Aadhaar number as applicable to legal residents in the country.

On July 31, the apex court had made it clear that there will be no coercive action by authorities against over 40 lakh people, whose names do not figure in NRC, observing that it was merely a draft.

It had asked the Centre to formulate modalities and the SOPs including timelines for deciding claims and objections arising out of the publication of the draft NRC.

Second draft NRC list was published on July 30 in which out of 3.29 crore people, names of 2.89 crore have been included in the draft NRC.

Names of 40,70,707 people do not figure in the list. Of these, 37,59,630 names have been rejected and the remaining 2,48,077 are on hold.

The first draft of the NRC for Assam was published on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 according to the top court's direction. Names of 1.9 crore people out of the 3.29 crore applicants were incorporated.

Assam, which had faced influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th century, is the only state having an NRC, which was first prepared in 1951.

The top court, which is monitoring the NRC work, had earlier said that the claims of those citizens, whose names do not figure in the draft NRC for Assam published by December 31 last year, would be scrutinised and included in the subsequent list, if found genuine.