New Delhi/Guwahati: The Supreme Court on Wednesday hinted that the high court ruling that residency certificates issued by gaon panchayat secretaries are not valid proof for determination of citizenship, may be partially modified as it would otherwise render more than 40 lakh people illegal migrants in Assam.

A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R.F. Nariman, however, maintained that the certificates cannot per se be deemed a valid certificate for determining the citizenship of a person as they would be still bound to furnish additional link documents and corroborative materials to establish citizenship.

The bench said this while reserving its verdict on a batch of petitions filed by several persons from Assam challenging the Gauhati High Court order, passed on February 28 this year, which invalidated 48 lakh panchayat documents submitted by married women as a supporting document for the NRC update.

The apex court is expected to pass its verdict on the issue in the next couple of days.

The subject of panchayat certificates reached the Supreme Court after the Assam unit of Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind filed a special leave petition on behalf of two women, Rupajan Begum and Monowra Begum. The apex court on Wednesday fixed November 29 and 30 for hearing the three other subjects related to the NRC update - original inhabitants, time of publishing the draft NRC and border fencing.

The NRC is being updated in Assam to weed out illegal migrants living in the state with the midnight of March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date.