The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to grant an urgent hearing on the petition filed by the Centre and Assam government seeking an extension of the July 31 deadline for the completion of the National Register for Citizens (NRC).
“We will see. We will examine the petition,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose observed.
The matter was mentioned before the court by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who submitted that it will not be possible to complete the NRC by July 31.
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.
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The additional exclusion list had named 1.02 lakh people whose names figured in the draft citizens’ list published in July last year but were subsequently found ineligible for inclusion.
The apex court is monitoring the NRC exercise aimed at identifying illegal immigrants in Assam, which has been facing an influx of people from Bangladesh for decades.
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.
The final list of the NRC is set to be published on July 31 this year.
(With ANI inputs)