SC refuses to grant urgent hearing on plea seeking extension of NRC deadline

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.

The Supreme 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 draft NRC included the names of 2.9 crore people out of the total 3.29 crore applications. The final list of the NRC is set to be published on July 31 this year.