New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has suggested coordinator of the National Register for Citizens exercise Prateek Hajela to explore the possibility of reverifying 10 per cent of the data to ensure it was error-free as the court expressed its reservations over the proposed standard operating procedure (SOP) suggested by the Union government to deal with the claims of four million persons excluded from the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

The register was itself mandated by the court as part of an effort to identify illegal migrants in the state.

A bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and RF Nariman said the Centre’s decision that claimants can submit “additional admissible legacy and linkage documents” would lead to “undesirable consequences” and could effectively mean restarting the whole process. Justice Gogoi pointed out that a person whose legacy document has been rejected earlier can come back with a fresh claim of legacy, perhaps even showing another person as a grandfather. This could lead to anomalous situation as the entire “family tree” would be changed by a person if he is allowed to file additional documents, Justice Gogoi remarked.

The court also asked Hajela to file in a sealed cover by September 4, a note on the possible ramifications if the Centre’s SOP is followed. The bench indicated that the process of filing claims and objections will commence from September 7 instead of August 30.

Hajela was also asked to look into the possibility of reverifying 10% of NRC data, district-wise, by an independent team to satisfy itself that no error has “crept into the draft.” The court took on record the data filed before it by Hajela on the district-wise percentage of people left out of NRC exercise. The court suggested that the reverification could be carried out in a district by people manning NRC Seva Kendras. The bench said it would like Hajela to let it know that, if possible, when such an exercise could be started and how long it would take.