Much to his surprise, the bench refused to be drawn into the controversy and instead focussed ahead on the publication of the NRC list
The Supreme Court on Thursday steered clear of the controversy surrounding the alleged leak of the data of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the Assam Assembly much ahead of its final publication date on August 31.
The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice RF Nariman, while taking an update on the progress of NRC work, were informed by the State NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela that despite the Supreme Court directing complete secrecy of the NRC data, the same had been breached. Hajela requested the Court to ensure secrecy of the data and sought directions in this regard.
Much to his surprise, the bench refused to be drawn into the controversy and instead focussed ahead on the publication of the NRC list. Refusing to entertain the application by Hajela, the bench said, "Orders of this Court are always subjected to criticism. If we begin to take note of it, we will fail to do any constructive work. So we don't think we will look into it."
‘INDIGENOUS PEOPLE LEFT OUT OF NRC’
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- The Assam government had claimed that the percentage of people excluded from the draft National Register of Citizens was lower in districts bordering Bangladesh, that have a sizeable Muslim population, than those where Hindus were in majority
- The government, last week, had placed in the Assembly, district-wise figures of the people left out of the highly-contentious NRC, which is being updated under the supervision of the Supreme Court
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The Court told Hajela that by all means the August 31 deadline should be met. The Court's attention was drawn to an application represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal who highlighted the plight of those persons born between March 1971 (the cut off period under NRC) and 1987 (when amended Citizenship Act introduced) as the latter declares citizens those persons born to parents of whom one is a citizen and the other is not an illegal migrant by birth.
Sibal pointed out that several such persons whose cases were pending with the Foreigner Tribunals would classify as citizens during the relevant period and the Court should examine this aspect before releasing the NRC list.
Advocate Somiran Sharma informed the Court that the dichotomy that exists between Section 3 of the amended Citizenship Act 1955 and the NRC Rules has been referred to a Constitution bench on July 21, 2015. The case is still pending for a hearing.
The bench also asked Hajela to prepare a note on the objections raised by Sibal and assured that judgment on this aspect shall be rendered by Tuesday.
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