Assam NRC: SC chooses 10 documents for enrolment, seeks Centre’s response

The Supreme Court on Wednesday chose 10 identity proof documents from a list of 15 to be accepted as a valid claim of people left out of the final draft of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) and sought the views of the Centre and other stakeholders on the issue.

The bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman picked up the 10 documents from the list suggested by the Assam State co-ordinator of NRC Prateek Hajela for dealing with the claims of about 40 lakh people, left out of the NRC, for their inclusion in the list.

The bench refused to give Attorney General KK Venugopal a copy of the report submitted by the Hajela to the Court in a sealed cover.

As the Attorney General repeatedly urged the Court to give the government a copy of the report carrying 15 suggested documents, Justice Gogoi said: "The Attorney General has sought the report of the State co-ordinator of NRC... At this stage we are of the view that what we have indicated in our order is sufficient."

Seeking the response of the Centre and other stakeholders to the suggestion for relying on 10 documents, the court fixed September 19 for next hearing.

Earlier on August 28, the apex court had said that it could consider a re-verification of 10 per cent of the people who were recently included in Assam's draft NRC, an exercise that could be carried out by an independent team.

The top court had termed the issue as "human problem with great magnitude" and had asked the state NRC coordinator to submit a report in a sealed cover on the ramification of allowing the claimants to file new sets of legacy documents.

with inputs from IANS and PTI