Amid a raging political uproar over the exclusion of a staggering 40 lakh people from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), published in Assam, the Supreme Court, on Tuesday (July 31), made it clear to the government that those left out must be given a fair chance to prove their claims for inclusion in the citizens’ register.

The Supreme Court bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and RF Nariman also told the centre and the government of Assam through Attorney General KK Venugopal, NRC co-ordinator for Assam Prateek Hajela, and Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, in unambiguous terms that “what has been published is a complete draft of NRC and it can’t be basis of any action by any authority”.

In simple terms, the court has ordered that those excluded from the final draft of the NRC cannot be deported or prosecuted by the State.

The bench has granted one week for people excluded from the NRC to ascertain the reasons for their non-inclusion or rejection from the final draft. Additionally, it has said that claims for inclusion and objections will be entertained by the top court between August 30 and September 28.

Justice Gogoi made it clear that “any person raising an objection should get a proper hearing” and directed the Centre through Attorney General KK Venugopal formulate a standard operating procedure (SOP) to deal with claims and objections.

Directing the Centre to place the SOP before the court for approval, Justice Gogoi said that the procedure thus laid out must be “fair and giving reasonable opportunity to contest exclusion”. He added: “if we find it (the SoP) appropriate we will approve it… otherwise we’ll modify”.

The bench said that its silence on the NRC and the exclusion of the lakhs of people from it should “not be construed either as agreement, consent or even an assurance” and added that “we’ll do what’s right”

The bench has listed the matter for next hearing on August 16 at 2pm.