Applicants excluded from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) are unlikely to receive their rejection certificates before November as the process of collecting related documents by the NRC authorities from the 2,500 seva kendras will continue till the end of October.

The 19 lakh people, who were excluded from the final NRC published on August 31, will not be able to approach the foreigners tribunals (FT) to establish their citizenship without the rejection certificates, which will mention the reasons for leaving out their names from the register.

NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela sent a standard operating procedure (SOP) to the district registrar of citizen registration (DRCR) on Wednesday stating how and when to complete the required official work for sending all documents in connection with the rejection certificates.

“The process of issuing rejection certificates is unlikely to start before November,” a DRCR told The Telegraph. The deputy commissioners are DRCRs of their respective districts.

The SOP deals with things like uploading the final NRC report card of a person, scanning of speaking orders and related documents by the NRC Seva Kendras about the hearings of cases of the excluded people. The last task, among them, “scanning of statements”, will be done on October 30. Only after that will the NRC authorities be able to prepare the rejection certificates to be sent to the excluded.

“There is a probability of extending the timeline beyond October as the number of excluded people in some districts is high. It will be difficult for them to scan and upload all these documents within this period,” said the official.

The NRC authorities will roll out a separate software application for scanning of speaking orders to the laptops of all NSK and circle offices.

The state government, meanwhile, has completed the selection process of members and other staff for the 200 new FTs to be set up to deal with the cases of the excluded people. The state already has 100 foreigners tribunals.

“The FTs will be made functional as soon as the NRC authorities start issuing rejection certificates,” said a senior government official. He said another 200 tribunals would be made operational by December. The excluded people will have to approach the FTs within 120 days of issuance the rejection certificates by the NRC authorities.