This story is from December 6, 2017

SC: Panchayat certificates valid for inclusion in NRC

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said certificates given by gram panchayat secretaries can be used to claim inclusion in the National Register of Citizens (NRC), thereby setting aside an earlier Gauhati high court verdict that declared such documents inadmissible as the sole proof of nationality.
SC: Panchayat certificates valid for inclusion in NRC
GUWAHATI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said certificates given by gram panchayat secretaries can be used to claim inclusion in the National Register of Citizens (NRC), thereby setting aside an earlier Gauhati high court verdict that declared such documents inadmissible as the sole proof of nationality.
The Supreme Court bench, comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice RF Nariman, said, “The certificate will be put to such limited use only if the contents of the certificate are found to be established on due and proper enquiry and verification.”
The bench added, “If the document and its contents is to be subjected to a thorough search and probe, we do not see why the certificate should have been interdicted by the high court, particularly, in the context of the facts surrounding the enumeration and inclusion of the documents mentioned in the illustrative list of documents.”
The certificate of the gram panchayat, countersigned by the local revenue official, is only for the use of married women who have migrated from one rural area to another to establish their linkage with their ancestors.
The apex court’s order has lifted off uncertainty over 29 lakh married women, whose applications for inclusion in the updated NRC have been kept in abeyance following the high court’s order.
The certificate is not mandatory for every married woman but is an additional option in the absence of any other legally acceptable documents, which contains her name and her ancestor’s name together.
The high court had earlier said questioned the legal validity of the certificates while hearing the question of citizenship of one Muslim woman, Monwara Bewa of Dhubri, which she challenged in the apex court.
Based on her petition and several others, the apex court gave its judgment on Tuesday.
Bewa’s counsel, Burhan Rahman, told TOI, “The gram panchayat certificate has been allowed by the Supreme Court to be used for a limited purpose of establishing linkage only and after verification.”
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About the Author
Prabin Kalita

Prabin Kalita is a journalist at The Times of India and is currently the Chief of Bureau (northeast). He has been reporting in mainstream Indian national media since 2001. He has been a field journalist reporting gamut of issues from India’s northeastern region and major developments in neighbouring countries like Myanmar, China, Bhutan and Bangladesh concerning India and northeastern region. He has been covering insurgency—internal and cross-border, politics, natural calamities, environment etc. He is a post-graduate in Geological Sciences from Gauhati University.

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