Assam to hold instant hearing on NRC claims

Guwahati, June 29 (IANS) Racing against time to meet the Supreme Court deadline, the authorities of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam will hold instant hearings for those whose names were included in the additional draft exclusion list published by the government on Wednesday (June 26).

On Wednesday, the Assam government updating the NRC published an additional draft exclusion list with the names of 102,462 people who are found to be ineligible to be included in the NRC, which is scheduled to be published not later than July 31 this year.

The names of 102,462 persons were included in the Draft NRC published on July 30 last year but subsequently found ineligible due to different reasons.

"Unlike last time, these 1,02,462 people can file their claim for inclusion of their names and their claim will be disposed off instantly. A Disposing Officer will take the hearing of the claim instantly and will dispose it," said a senior official of the NRC on Saturday.

He said this is being done to meet the deadline as the Supreme Court has made it clear that the final NRC has to be published not later than July 31 this year.

The Assam government started the process of updating the NRC of 1951 in 2013.

After a rigorous process of application and verification at different levels, a draft NRC was published last year which included the names of 2.9 crore people out of the total 3.29 crore people.

The names of 40,07,707 people were kept outside the draft NRC due to some discrepancies in their documents.

"The process of claim and objection started on September 25 last year and ended on December 31, 2018. Hearing for the claims and objections started on February 15," the official said adding that in case of the people listed in the additional draft exclusion list, the claims and hearing will be held instantly so that things can be finalized on time.