The Supreme Court on Thursday said the July 31, 2019 deadline to finalise the National Register of Citizens for Assam cannot be extended and asked the state government, the NRC co-ordinator and the EC to ensure that the upcoming general elections do not slow down the process.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela, Secretary of the Election Commission and the Assam chief secretary to conduct a meeting within a week to ensure that the NRC finalisation process and the upcoming parliamentary elections go “hand-in-hand” and there is no dearth of government officials for either process, reports PTI.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Assam Government, told the bench, also comprising Justice R F Nariman, that such a meeting would be held and the court would be apprised of the deliberations. 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. Hajela said that out of about 40 lakh persons, who were left out of draft NRC, 36.2 lakh persons have filed claims with the authorities for inclusion of their names in the final NRC.
Inputs from Freepressjournal