KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday inaugurated a succession certificate one-widow operation facility at National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) Mega Centre in DHA to issue succession certificates/letter of administration within 15 days of receipt of the application.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by Adviser to the Chief Minister Murtaza Wahab and other officials, said a statement.

The CM Sindh said that the Supreme Court evaluated that 30 per cent of judicial workload was of succession-related issues, due to which other important matters were kept pending.

Therefore, the Sindh government passed the succession law from the assembly on April 28 and within six weeks it was published in the gazette, he said and added that now it was being implemented by launching its counters at Nadra centres.

He said that Nadra was the custodian of citizens’ data, and therefore the task of issuance of succession certificate had been entrusted to them.

The issuance of succession certificate and letter of administration was taking three to six months and sometimes five years in certain cases, therefore, it had been assigned to Nadra, he added.

Facility launched in Karachi; will be available across Sindh from Friday

Nadra has started issuance of succession certificate/letter of administration from June 22 in Karachi, while from June 25 the facility would be available all over Sindh.

The chief minister added that Sindh had efficiently adopted the concept and had become the first province to implement the same as per their vision of utmost public convenience.

Murad Ali Shah thanked Nadra for providing the service of issuance of succession certificates.

Upon the death of any family member, legal heirs languish in courts for years before obtaining the letter of administration or succession certificate, as the case may be, the CM Sindh said.

However, he added, through a quick five-stage process Nadra would now provide the documents by the Succession Facilitation Unit.

Vaccination drive

Replying to a question, the chief minister said that the provincial governments were asked in the NCOC meeting to accelerate the vaccination drive.

“We have accelerated the drive and within the next three months 10.8 million people will be vaccinated,” he said.

The CM said that Mazdoor Card would also be linked to the data of Nadra.

It is pertinent to mention here that the applicant may visit the succession unit and will provide their national identity number and a deceased person’s death certificate along with an application (on affidavit).

In case of any factual controversy or an objection by legal heirs or by any claimant of legal heirship, any dispute which may arise in establishing the identity of legal heirs, which is not resolvable by the authority or any situation, matter or event requiring adjudication or recording or evidence or where at least one of the legal heirs is a minor, the authority will issue pre-processing decline to seek remedy from court of law.

The applicant will provide the relevant details of legal heirs and information about the deceased’s moveable and immovable assets.

After entering of legal heirs and information, a system-generated acknowledgment is printed that is duly signed by the applicant endorsing the correctness of the information.

All legal heirs mentioned by the applicant will visit any Nadra Registration Centre for biometric verification and give consent to the succession application submitted by the applicant.

Nadra will publish the notice to the public at large in three newspapers, Urdu, English and Sindhi of wide circulation, for ascertaining if there are any objections to the particular application.

If no objection is received after publication in newspapers within 14 days, the succession certificate/letter of administration will be printed and issued to the applicant.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2021