ABOUT two years ago, the then federal law minister had proudly announced the delegation of authority to the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) for the issuance of succession certificates, and that, too, within 15 days.

I had written in these columns (Can Nadra manage succession matters?; Feb 10, 2021), expressing my reservations about the implementation and the ability of the people sitting in Nadra to manage such matters due to lack of expertise at their end.

My apprehensions were not unfounded and have proved to be true as far as my personal experience goes. I recently visited Nadra office in Blue Area, Islamabad, to obtain a succession certificate in respect of my late brother.

The legal department pointed out a discrepancy in the document issued by its own office, specifically, the names of my two late brothers not appearing in each other’s Family Registration Certificate (FRC) by birth in their respective family trees.

Although their names were mentioned in the FRC by birth, which I had obtained for myself after paying Rs1,000 as fee, it was my wrong assumption that in this digital/cyber age, the data would automatically be uploaded in the family tree of each sibling if any one member of the family got it updated. I was not aware that each and every member of the family would have to make a visit to Nadra to update his/her data and pay Rs1,000 each for updating and getting an FRC.

Obviously, this is not possible now, as one cannot have biometrics of dead persons whose physical presence would be required at Nadra office for obtaining the fingerprint impressions.

I was, therefore, told by Nadra that the case could not be processed at its end, and suggested that the case be taken up in a civil court for which Nadra would issue a ‘decline certificate’ and a sum of Rs15,000 would be charged for its issuance. It seems Nadra has become a money minting machine.

I was aghast at the demand. It had the temerity of demanding remuneration/fee for not facilitating me in terms of processing a simple piece of data. In fact, I would be incurring extra expenses by way of lawyer fee, court charges and the hassle of visiting the court innumerable times.

So I am back to square one, and, therefore, have a sincere advice for the readers; keep your data updated as everyone at some point will need to go through this process. Do not be under the impression that Nadra will update data by itself. It should, but it will not.

Khaled
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2023