NRC Assam: Supreme Court Pulls Up Modi Government, Says 'MHA Hell Bent on Destroying Process'
The Supreme Court refused to extend the deadline for the publication of Assam's final NRC.
New Delhi, February 5: The Supreme Court on Tuesday came down heavily on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government for "destroying" Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) process. Refusing to extend the July 31 deadline for the publication of Assam's final NRC, the division bench said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is hell-bent on destroying the NRC process.
Attorney General KK Venugopal told the Supreme Court that the Centre wants to put work on NRC updation on hold till the completion of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Responding to this, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said: "The MHA is bent upon that NRC work is not carried out. The entire effort of the Ministry is to destroy this process. If you want NRC work to go on, there are 1,001 ways of doing it."
To ensure that the Lok Sabha polls preparations don't hamper the NRC process, the apex court asked the Election Commission to consider exempting certain state officers from election duty. The bench asked the EC to examine if it could hold the elections in the state by sparing 3,457 officers who would continue NRC updation work. Citizenship Amendment Bill Debate: Govt Committed Towards NRC But Can’t Give Citizenship to Illegal Migrants, Says Rajnath Singh in Lok Sabha.
The top court had said on January 24 that the July 31, 2019 deadline to finalise the NRC for Assam cannot be extended. It had asked the state government, the NRC co-ordinator and the EC to ensure that the upcoming general elections did not slow down the process.
The draft National Register of Citizens for Assam was published on July 30, 2018, in which the names of 2.89 crore of the 3.29 crore people were included. The names of 40,70,707 people did not figure in the list. Of these, 37,59,630 names have been rejected and the remaining 2,48,077 are on hold.
Earlier, the apex court had extended till December 31, 2018, the deadline for filing claims and objections for the inclusion of names in the NRC in Assam by those who have been left out in the draft NRC. It had also made clear that the deadline for verifying the claims for inclusion in the NRC would be February 15, 2019, instead of February 1.
The first draft of the NRC for Assam was published on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 in accordance with the top court’s direction. Names of 1.9 crore people out of the 3.29 crore applicants were incorporated then. (With PTI inputs)
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 05, 2019 05:49 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).