SC extends July 31 deadline by a month for publication of final Assam NRC

The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended the deadline for the final publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam from July 31 to August 31.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman passed the order on a plea filed by the Centre and Assam government for extension of the deadline.

They had also sought a direction from the apex court for conducting a re-verification of names to check wrongful inclusions, especially in the border districts.

The court, however, refused to allow a plea for 20 per cent sample re-verification of those included and excluded from the NRC.

On June 19, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the Assam government, had pleaded for extension of the July 31 deadline for the finalisation of the NRC, contending there is a growing perception that lakhs of illegal migrants have been included in the list.

"Illegal immigrants have to be dealt with severely. India cannot be the refugee capital of the world," he had submitted.

Mehta had said, "There is a growing perception that lakhs of illegal immigrants have been included in the NRC list in alleged collusion with local NRC officials in Assam."

The 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 first 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 draft NRC included the names of 2.9 crore people out of the total 3.29 crore applications.