Assam NRC: Centre wants to conduct sample re-verification of names

New Delhi, July 17: The Centre and the Assam Government made urgent mentions before the Supreme Court seeking an extension of the deadline for the final publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) from July 31, 2019 to a future date.

They urged the court for more time so that a sample re-verification process could be conducted. The application stated that a 20 per cent sample re-verification of the names should be conducted in the in the districts bordering Bangladesh and a 10 per cent sample re-verification in the remaining districts.

The deadline for the final list is July 31 and the Centre has sought for a hearing before that. Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta requested the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi to grant the Centre a hearing on the issue before the July 31 deadline.

The CJI has said that he would look into the applications.

It may be recalled that in May the court had made it clear that it will not extend the July 31 deadline for finalisation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

A 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.

The direction came after Hajela informed the bench that many persons, who had objected to inclusion of certain individuals in the draft NRC are not coming forward before panels which are dealing with such complaints.

The draft Assam 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 40,70,707 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.