The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Monday that people who are not part of the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) will not be automatically declared foreigners.
A report in the The Indian Express quoted a Home Ministry official as saying on Monday that “The NRC, to be published on July 30, is only a draft and after it is published, adequate opportunities for filing claims and objections will be available to those whose names are excluded from it.”
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The report also stated that people who are not named in the draft will be given a month’s time to file claims and objections, besides subsequent judicial recourse, the Ministry said. The Government is expecting that the Registrar General of India (RGI), monitoring the NRC upgradation, to complete the process of publishing the final NRC by August 31.
The Home Ministry official also made it clear that the NRC, to be published on July 30, is only a draft and after it is published; adequate opportunities for filing claims and objections will be available to those whose names are excluded from it.
“All claims and objections will be duly examined. The NRC authorities will give a one-month window, when all objections and complaints will be examined after giving a proper hearing to the complainants. Only thereafter, the final NRC will be published,” the official said.
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Allaying fears over NRC, the official also added that exclusion from the final NRC does not mean automatic declaration of anyone as a foreigner, and once the final document is published, if someone is dissatisfied, he or she can always go to a foreigners’ tribunal in Assam. There are around 300 foreigners’ tribunals in Assam.
The official said no one should have any apprehension about the exercise, adding that adequate Central paramilitary forces were dispatched to Assam to assist the State administration to deal with any “law-and-order situation”.