Centre asks Supreme Court to extend Assam NRC deadline, says India can’t be refugee capital of world 

An NRC help centre in Assam.

New Delhi: The Centre, while emphasizing the need for a large-scale re-verification exercise before the final National Citizens Register, asked the Supreme Court, on Friday, to extend the July 31 deadline for the Assam list. It said that it needed to tweak the process for inclusion of names in the list.

The solicitor general of India, Tushar Mehta, told a special bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, “… There is a growing perception that lakhs of illegal migrants have been included in the NRC list in alleged collusion with local NRC officials in the state of Assam. Illegal immigrants have to be dealt severely.”

Mehta added, “India cannot be the refugee capital of world. A re-look at the process by sample verification is required.”
The court has fixed National Register of Citizens matter for further hearing on July 23.

The Union and state government also said that lakhs of people have been wrongly included in areas bordering Bangladesh due to involvement of local officers.

The first draft of the NRC for Assam was published on the intervening night of December 31, 2017 and January 1, 2018 in accordance with the top court's direction.

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.

 Meanwhile, Azizur Rehman, adviser of All Assam Minority Students Union, said, “The state and the central government don’t want to publish NRC and that is why they are resorting to such petitions of re-verification. Six to seven rounds of re-certification have already happened in the NRC process. If the state government knew the details of illegal persons who have been included in NRC, why did it not share their details with the NRC officials earlier? It has been one year since the NRC draft was published.”

Related