The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended the deadline for publication of the final National Register of Citizen (NRC) for Assam from July 31 to August 31.
However, the top court declined the prayer of the Centre and Assam government seeking 20 per cent sample re-verification of names included in the final draft of the NRC in the districts bordering Bangladesh.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and also comprising Justice R F Nariman said the report of NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela pointed out that 27 per cent re-verification had already happened in the process of adjudication of fresh claims and objections.
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The final draft NRC had left out 40 lakh applicants. Last month on June 26, over a lakh people were excluded from the draft NRC in Assam after an additional list of exclusions was published.
Earlier on July 16, the apex court had refused to grant an urgent hearing on the petition filed by the Centre and Assam government seeking an extension of the July 31 deadline.
The NRC containing the names of Indian citizens was prepared in 1951. When the draft NRC was published on July 30, 2018, there was a huge controversy over the exclusion of 40.7 lakh people from it.