Supreme Court Issues Notice To Centre On Plea Seeking Directions To Initiate Appeal For Exclusion From Assam NRC

The plea filed by the Assam State Jamiat Ulama came up for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi.

The petitioner's counsel argued that people were suffering.

"For those who have been excluded, there is a provision for appeal but nothing is happening," he said, adding that a separate petition raising a similar issue was already pending before the Apex Court.

"Issue notice," the bench said and tagged the plea with the pending petition.

The Apex Court has sought responses from the Centre and others, including the Assam government and the office of the state coordinator.

The updated final NRC, which validates bonafide Indian citizens of Assam, was released on August 31, 2019. The exercise shut out the citizenship claims of over 19 lakh applicants.

A total of 3,30,27,661 (3.3 crore) people had applied to be included in the NRC. Of them, 3,11,21,004 (3.1 crore) were included in the document and 19,06,657 (19.06 lakh) excluded, a statement from the NRC State Coordinators office said.

In its plea, the Assam State Jamiat Ulama sought a direction to the concerned authorities to forthwith issue national identity cards under Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 read with Rule 13 of the 2003 Rules to all persons found included in the final NRC published in Assam.

It has also sought a direction to authorities to initiate an appeal process for the persons excluded from final NRC published in Assam.