Govt will provide legal support to citizens left out of NRC, says Assam minister; 200 new foreigners’ tribunals to open from Monday

Guwahati: The Assam government Saturday claimed many genuine Indian citizens have been left out of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC), but said they do not need to panic as they have option to appeal in the Foreigners Tribunal (FT). Speaking to PTI, Assam Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, said the government will provide legal support to the Indian citizens not finding place in the NRC list. “One thing is sure that many genuine Indians were left out of the NRC. However, they don’t need to panic and worry. They can appeal in the FTs,” Patowary said. [caption id=“attachment_7261611” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  People stand in a queue to check their names on the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) outside a Gaon Panchayat office in Assam. PTI[/caption] If the genuine Indians, who were not included in the NRC, require assistance in appealing in the Tribunal, the government will assist them, he added. “We have increased the number of FTs to 300 from 100 earlier. The additional FTs will start functioning from Monday. So people can result approach the FTs,” said Patowary, who is also the spokesperson of the Assam government. When pointed out to the allegation of the AASU that less number of exclusions was due to government’s inaction, the senior minister said that the entire exercise was carried out under the direct supervision of the Supreme Court. “In the entire process, we provided the logistic support. We had no other role. Even the NRC State Coordinator was directly reporting to the SC and did not share any information with us,” he added. Patowary said that from the 41 lakh excluded in the complete draft of the NRC, those who applied with proper documents were verified and included. “Because of the less number of exclusions and wrongful inclusions, we had filed an affidavit in the SC seeking sample re-verification of 20 per cent of the names. But the SC did not agree to our request,” he added. The state and the central governments had appealed the top court twice for sample re-verification to find out wrongful inclusions, especially in districts bordering Bangladesh, and exclusions in the NRC. The apex court in strong words earlier this month said the entire NRC exercise cannot be ordered to be re-opened on the basis of certain parameters. The final NRC was published on Saturday by excluding 19,06,657 persons. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.