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GUWAHATI: More than one lakh people who had made it to the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) have been found ineligible, for the moment, for inclusion in the final NRC which will be released on July 31.

The additional draft exclusion list, released on Wednesday, named 1,02,462 people who must again prove their citizenship credentials. “There were some people whose names were included in the draft NRC published on July 30 last year but were found ineligible upon subsequent verification,” an NRC official said.

The criteria for exclusion had to do with one of two things — they had either failed one of the other citizenship tests in Assam or another round of verification had found anomalies in their applications.

For the former, those who were found to be “doubtful” voters, “declared foreigners” (according to a foreigners’ tribunal), or had cases pending in a foreigners’ tribunal were excluded, as were their descendants. Under the latter criteria, wrong entry of documents, mismatch of family documents and unavailability of records of documents submitted by applicants rendered them ineligible for inclusion. In such cases, these anomalies were revealed after verification by the local registrar of citizens’ registration.

The draft exclusion list did not, however, consider those who had appeared for hearings of claims and objections to inclusion in the NRC, which were disposed of between February 15 and June 26. The draft NRC published in July last year had excluded 40.07 lakh applicants out of 3.29 crore. These applicants could file claims for inclusion between September 25 and December 31 last year. The outcomes of those hearings will be reflected in the final NRC.

The list is publicly available on the NRC website. Those who appear on the list will also be sent “letters of information” (LoIs) which will state the reason for exclusion. “They can file their claims for inclusion again, which will be disposed of through a hearing by a disposing officer. The submission of a claim and its disposal will be done together,” an NRC statement said. The LoI will mention where and when the claim is to be submitted and heard. The dates will also be available online on the NRC website from June 29.

“The hearings will begin on July 5, 2019 ... The results of such persons will be declared in the final NRC on July 31,” the statement added. Those who do not make it to the final NRC will have to appeal to foreigners’ tribunals for inclusion.

Last month, the Centre amended the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964 to include provisions for appeal by anyone who does not feature in the NRC. The May 30 gazette notification by the Union home ministry says that to file an appeal an applicant has to provide a certified copy of the rejection order received from the NRC authorities along with the grounds for appeal.

However, this comes with riders. Those against whom a foreigners’ tribunal has “already given opinion” and declared them a non-national cannot file an appeal. In addition, those against whom a “reference” has been made by a “competent authority” to a foreigners’ tribunal cannot appeal for inclusion.



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