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 ordered that any one of the 10 of the 15 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 Pratik 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." The bench then posted the matter for further hearing on September 19.
The final draft NRC list was published on July 30 in which names of 2.89 crore of the 3.29 crore people were included. The names of 40,70,707 people did not figure in the list. Of these, 37,59,630 names have been rejected and the remaining 2,48,077 are on hold.
On July 31, the apex court had made it clear that there will be no coercive action by the authorities against over 40 lakh people, whose names did not figure in the NRC while observing that it was merely a draft.