New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred till further orders the commencement of the process of receiving claims and objections for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and sought the Centre’s response on the suggestion that any one of the 10 documents can be used by claimants to prove legacy.
A bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman perused the report of Assam’s NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela and said it was agreeable to his suggestions 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 bench 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 though the Government of India was “extremely interested”, the court “has to strike a balance”.
The top court deferred till further orders the commencement of the process of receiving claims and objections for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for Centre, said a copy of the report should be given to them as “Government of India is extremely interested in it”.
To this, the bench said “the Government of India may be interested but we need to balance it.” As Venugopal persisted with his demand for a copy of report saying “If I can see it, then only I can file my response to it”, the bench said “Not at this stage. We will put the list of documents which can be relied upon in our orders. You can see the order and file the response”.
On the demand of the Attorney General seeking a copy of the NRC Coordinator’s report, the top court said “we are of the considered view that at this stage what has been set out, should be sufficient for the Union of India and other stake-holders to indicate their views in the matter within two weeks, whereafter, orders as may be appropriate will be passed”.
The bench then posted the matter for further hearing on September 19.
It said the report with regard to preparation of the modalities of the Standard Operating Procedure for dealing with claims and objections, has been considered. Hajela had filed the report in compliance with the court’s August 28 order and stated that the 10 documents of List-A could be relied upon or introduced afresh by any claimant for his or her claim for inclusion in the NRC, subject to their authenticity as per the certification by the relevant issuing authority. (PTI)
