GUWAHATI, July 4 - As it is evident now that names of around 1.50 lakh applicants, whose names appeared in the first (part) draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be deleted from the final draft to be published on July 30, the office of the State NRC Coordinator�s Office will inform such persons individually about the decision so that they can file claims on time.
While seeking permission from the Supreme Court to leave out the names, the NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela had informed the Court that such persons will be individually informed about the decision and they can file claim for inclusion of their names at the claim and objection stage. Those applicants will be informed additionally through a Letter of Information (LOI). The LOI will have to be served to the rejected applicants within seven days from publication of Complete Draft. The LOI will explicitly state that the applicant has opportunity to file claim for inclusion of names in the NRC. The LOI will also inform about the time schedule and place of submission of the claim.
Giving the reasons for the decision to leave out names published in the first draft from the final draft, the State NRC Coordinator said in his report to the Supreme Court that the part draft of the NRC comprising 1.9 crore applicants out of the total 3.29 crore applicants was published on December 31, 2017. At that stage the family tree mismatch investigation and Gaon Panchayat Secretary Certificate verification in respect of married women were pending and scheduled for subsequent draft list. During the course of the Family Tree investigation, 65,694 cases which were earlier found to be matched at office level were discovered to be false. Due opportunity has been given to such persons during the Family Tree hearing and as such their names are proposed for exclusion from Complete Draft NRC as per the provisions of Clause 4(3), 4(5) and 4(6) of the Citizenship Rules, 2003.
Similarly, 48,456 cases of married women who have submitted Panchayat certificates as a linkage document but were included in the Part Draft based on their office verification have not been found admissible in the re-verification process of hearing conducted for Gaon Panchayat Secretary Certificate verification as mandated by the Court. These married women were also issued notices and have appeared subsequent to their inclusion in the Part Draft for special verification conducted in respect of Gaon Panchayat Secretary Certificates. As such, 1.15 lakh persons already included in Part Draft have not been found admissible for inclusion during the verification process in the Complete Draft though were part of the Part Draft. In addition to these persons, the quality control exercise has also revealed errors in respect of 19,783 persons who were included in the Part Draft but are not eligible. Minimal increase in this number may happen till completion of data entry. Such errors have been observed due to wrong data entry or error at the field level in contravention to the prescribed guidelines.
The exercise of NRC is being done by approximately 40,000 State Government functionaries and outsourced data entry operators for the first time and given its complexities and magnitude, the scale/size of error is relatively small and have been detected in the quality control exercise for necessary corrections. As such about 1.5 lakh persons will be excluded from Complete Draft NRC although they were included in the first draft, the NRC coordinator said.
The Coordinator further said that the names of only those included in the NRC would be published and there would be no publication of the names of those whose applications are rejected.
