Assam NRC: SC extends deadline to publish final list to 31 August, accepts plea by Centre, state government

The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended the deadline to publish the final Assam National Register of Citizens list to 31 August, News18 reported. In doing so, the court has accepted the demand of the Centre and Assam government, who had sought an extension of the earlier deadline of 31 July. Last week, the Centre and Assam government had filed a plea in the apex court seeking a “sample re-verification” of 20 percent of the population in districts bordering Bangladesh. This was said to be to prevent wrongful inclusions or exclusions in the NRC. [caption id=“attachment_5320161” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of people outside an NRC Seva Kendra in Guwahati. PTI[/caption] “India cannot be the refugee capital of the world”, both the governments had asserted while seeking the extension of the deadline. The bench took note of the submissions of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the state government, that several lakhs people have been wrongfully included in the NRC, especially in districts bordering Bangladesh due to the involvement of local officers in the massive exercise. “Please extend the deadline for publication of final Assam NRC from 31 July to a future date. There is a growing perception that many exclusions and many more inclusions have been made wrongly,” the solicitor-general had told the court. The top court had termed the issue as “human problem with great magnitude” and asked the state NRC coordinator to submit a report in a sealed cover on the ramification of allowing the claimants to file new sets of legacy documents. The first draft of the NRC for Assam was published on the intervening night of 31 December, 2017 and 1 January, 2018 in accordance with the top court’s direction. Names of 1.9 crore people out of the 3.29 crore applicants were incorporated then. Assam, which had faced an influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th century, is the only state having an NRC which was first prepared in 1951. With inputs from PTI