National Register of Citizens: Crucial hearing in SC tomorrow day after Assam misses deadline for final draft

New Delhi: Crucial issues related to the publication of final draft of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) will come up before the Supreme Court on Monday, days after the NRC state coordinator said it would not be possible to release it as scheduled on 30 June due to the floods in state. The NRC is being prepared to identify illegal migrants in Assam. [caption id=“attachment_4283263” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of a queue outside an NRC Seva Kendra in Guwahati. PTI.[/caption] A bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohinton Fali Nariman, supervising the process related to the work, had earlier ordered that the final draft of the NRC should be completed and published by 30 June and had refused to extend the deadline any further. However, NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela, on 28 June, said the final draft would not be released as scheduled due to the heavy floods in the state’s Barak Valley. A plea has also been filed in the apex court seeking more time to prepare the final draft. Hajela had said it would not be possible to publish the draft on 30 June as floods have hit Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts in the Barak Valley, besides parts of Karbi Anglong and Hojai. The current wave of floods in the state has affected more than five lakh people in seven districts. As many as 25 people have also died in the deluge, so far. Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had also recently said that the names of all “genuine Indians” would be incorporated in the list of the state’s citizens. He had also ruled out the possibility of violence after the publication of the NRC, saying adequate forces were deployed across the state to deal with any situation. On 27 March, the apex court had refused to extend the deadline for the ongoing process of publication of the final draft of the NRC in Assam and directed its publication by 30 June. The first NRC draft for Assam was published in December end as per the top court’s direction 31 December deadline. The first draft of the NRC, a list of the state’s citizens, was published on the intervening night of 31 December and 1 January and included the names of 1.9 crore people of the 3.29 crore applicants. Assam, which has faced an influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th century, is the only state with an NRC, which was first prepared in 1951. The top court had earlier said that the claims of those citizens, whose names do not figure in the draft NRC for Assam published by 31 December, would be scrutinised and included in the subsequent lists if found genuine. The NRC of 1951 is being updated for Assam in accordance with the 2005 tripartite agreement between the state, Centre and the influential All Assam Students’ Union as a key issue for the implementation of the 1985 Assam Accord.