Plea moved with Indian SC seeking extension of final NRC deadline

The Indian and the Assam governments today moved an appeal with the Supreme Court seeking extension of the July 31 deadline for coming out with the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

"India cannot be the world's refugee capital of the world," India's Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi while moving the plea.

The governments also sought sample re-verification of the people included in the NRC, saying lakhs of people have been wrongly included in areas bordering Bangladesh due to involvement of local officers.

"These names need to be purged," Mehta said adding the number of such people would be in lakhs, and so more time is needed to re-verify it.

The first draft of the NRC for Assam was published on the intervening night of December 31, 2017 and January 1, 2018 abiding by the top court's directive. The names of 1.9 crore people out of the 3.29 crore applicants were incorporated then and 40 lakh names were left out.

Assam, which had faced influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th century, is the only state having an NRC which was first prepared in 1951.

The Supreme Court, which also heard Assam's NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela today, has not given its ruling on the plea moved by the Indian and Assam authorities and the bench will continue the hearing on Tuesday.

Prateek Hajela backed the government's plea for more time but underlined that around 80 lakh people were re-verified during sample verification on the basis of their family tree.

This amounted to around 27 per cent of the re-verification of claims, he said.  

The assertion prompted the Supreme Court to wonder aloud if there really was a need for re-verification of names as sought by the government.

Hajela also said he would need about a month to publish the final NRC but would be able to come out with a supplementary list on July 31 with fresh inclusions and exclusions.

The NRC is being updated in Assam under the supervision of the apex court with the aim of weeding out illegal immigrants.