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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday said people can file claims and objections on inclusion and exclusion in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam from August 30 and asked state coordinator Prateek Hajela to submit a sealed cover report by August 25 on districtwise percentage of population excluded from the draft NRC .

A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman said it had gone through the standard operating procedure (SOP) for receiving and adjudicating claims and objections on the draft NRC prepared by the Centre but said except for start of the process on August 30, the other timelines leading to finalisation of the NRC would be decided after it got the views of stakeholders.

The bench asked petitioners and other intervenors — Assam Public Works, Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, National Democratic Front of Bodoland, Indigenous Tribal Peoples Federation, All Assam Bhojpuri Parishad, Joint Action Committee for Bengali Refugees, All Assam Minorities Students’ Union and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind — to give their views on the SOP by August 25 and posted the matter for further hearing on August 28 to firm up the timeline for the last date for filing of applications, the time period for adjudication and possibly the finalisation of NRC.

The Centre’s SOP had given a 60-day window for the 40 lakh persons left out of the draft NRC to make applications starting from August 30. The SOP had provided that applications for claims and objections from the public would commence from August 30 and continue till October 28 and digitisation and processing of forms would be completed by November 20.

Notices would be issued to parties on the applications by November 30 and hearing on these would start from December 12. Facilitating easy access of the draft NRC by the general public and aggrieved persons, the bench directed Hajela “to make available copies of the final draft NRC in all panchayat offices and such other places so as to make access to the draft NRC freely available”.

The SOPsaidclaims for inclusion of names in NRC would be entertained only from those who had already applied in 2015 when applications were called and whose names were left out in the draft NRC published on July 30.

