The Supreme Court on Tuesday said no authority or State agency must act against persons who do not figure in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the reason that the process of finalising the NRC is still on.
The court also expedited the process of settling claims and objections of about 40 lakh people who had applied but got rejected or excluded from the NRC. The Centre has been directed to prepare a timeline by August 16 for evolving a fair procedure to deal with these cases and fix timelines to ensure finalisation of the names.
Monitoring the publication of the draft list of citizens residing in the State of Assam before March 24, 1971, a Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohington F Nariman said, “We would like to observe that what has been published is a draft NRC which being a draft cannot be the basis for any action by any authority or State.”