The Supreme Court on Wednesday made it clear that it will not extend the July 31 deadline for finalisation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.
The court declared that the process must be completed on or before July 31. It said that the process could not be delayed even by a day.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice R F Nariman also gave a ‘free hand’ to Prateek Hajela, Assam NRC coordinator, dealing with claims and objections of persons against wrong exclusion or inclusion of citizens in the NRC.
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Earlier, the Chief Justice had criticised the Centre and the Ministry of Home Affairs’ plea requesting a suspension of the NRC work during the general elections.
The draft NRC 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 around 40.70 lakh 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.