Re-verify 4.7m of those excluded: Indian SC

India's Supreme Court today ordered re-verification of 10 percent of the people in Assam, who were excluded from the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) published last month.

A bench comprising of Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman said the re-verification was a "sample survey" for the satisfaction of the court and its schedule would be decided later.

The draft NRC, aimed at identifying illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, was published on July 30, leaving out 40.7 lakh people from having a place in the document.  

The apex court also deferred the scheduled date of August 30 for receipt of claims and objections to the draft NRC, as it pointed out certain contradictions in the Indian government's Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) when filing them.

The top court raised doubts over the government's proposal to allow a claimant to change his legacy document for inclusion in the draft.

On July 31, the apex court had made it clear that there will be no coercive action by authorities against the over 40 lakh people whose names did not figure in the NRC.

It had then asked the Indian government to come out with modalities and the SOPs, including timelines, for deciding claims and objections arising out of the publication of the draft.

Earlier, the apex court had asked the Assam NRC coordinator to place before it the data of district-wise percentage of population excluded from the draft in the state.