In a major relief for over 40 lakh people left out of the final draft of the Assam NRC, the Supreme Court on Thursday extended the last date for filing their claims and objections from November 25 to December 15.

After December 15, the notices to claimants would be issued till January 15, 2019. The commencement of verification of their claims would commence from April 1, 2019.

A Special Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Rohinton F. Nariman
further allowed claimants to use five more documents to prove their legacy. They are the NRC, 1951; names in electoral roll up to March 24, 1971; citizenship certificate; refugee registration certificate; certified copies of pre-1971 electoral roll, particularly, those issued from the State of Tripura; and ration card. Any of these five documents can now be used for claimants to prove their Indian legacy in the ongoing claims and objections process.

The Bench disagreed with State NRC Co-ordinator Prateek Hajela's conclusion that these five documents can be easily forged, and thus, should not be permitted for use by claimants to prove their Indian citizenship.

"We do not think you are right, Mr. Hajela," Justice Nariman told the Co-ordinator.

Chief Justice Gogoi said the mere possibility that these documents may be used by ineligible persons cannot be a ground for barring them for use by genuine claimants.

The court said the answer lies in allowing the use of these five records but subject to multiple and vigorous verification. It tasked Mr. Hajela to prepare the groundwork for such a verification process.

The five are part of a total 15 documents listed by the Centre in its draft Standard Operating Procedure for vetting the claims and objections of over 40 lakh people excluded from the draft NRC published on July 30.

The court had approved of 10 documents, but these five were put in a suspect list after Mr. Hajela filed a report on October 4 that there was a possibility they could be forged to hoodwink authorities for a berth in the final NRC.

The Centre has been vociferously in support of including the five documents.

Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal had raised strong objections against the Supreme Court’s decision to exclude these five documents from the ones claimants could rely on to prove their legacy in the claims and objections stage.

“What is the rationale behind you saying these 10 documents can be relied on and those five cannot be? The exclusion of the five documents was “against justice and highly counter-productive” Mr. Venugopal had submitted to the court.

The AG made a forceful submission that many of the people involved in the claims and objection stage were illiterate and live in the rural parts of Assam. “They are not competent like lawyers. They are unable to decide for themselves which documents is best suited for their purpose. They go to other people for help… consequence of losing their citizenship is huge,” Mr. Venugopal had submitted.