MY driver’s younger brother applied for his national identity card about two months ago at the National Database and Registration Authority’s Mega Centre in DHA Karachi.

He submitted the ‘birth registration certificate’ issued by the Sindh government and copies of admission forms for secondary school certificate as documentary evidence. Both show his date of birth as Dec 25, 1998.

He received his NIC, 42301-0810838-1 with an error. The date of birth is shown incorrectly as Dec 25, 1988. When he went for correction, he was told that a correction cannot be made and he must file a suit in court for this purpose.

A complaint was lodged on Oct 11, 2017 at the Nadra website complaint centre http://nadra.gov.pk/complaint mentioning the problem. After a week the reply received was: “It is requested to [sic] visit concerned Nadra office and contact to [sic] concerned incharge for status of your case and redressal of your complain[t].”

Young Arsalan again visited the ‘concerned in-charge’ but his reply was the same that he should file a suit in court for getting the date corrected. This is preposterous!

Nadra erred despite the supporting documents. Second, when the mistake was brought to the concerned officials’ notice, it being a clerical one, Nadra should have corrected it.

The Nadra officials are telling a poor man to file a suit costing him over Rs50,000 for their mistake. Where is justice?

Justice (r) Salahuddin Mirza

Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2017