Begin typing your search above and press return to search.

Advocates� body to challenge NRC modalities

By Correspondent

SILCHAR, April 25 � The Barak Human Rights Protection Society, a locally formed organisation of the advocates has claimed that the Supreme Court has not given any verdict on whether 1951 or 1971 should be the base year for determination of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. The society has also said that the Supreme Court has only asked the government to complete the process of updating the NRC within January 1, 2016.

�The people need to be made aware about the confusion created and disseminated by the government through the leaflets and advertisements coating it as a direction from the Supreme Court. We will also challenge the modalities and conditions as bracketed by the government in the Supreme Court,� said advocate Niladri Roy, general secretary of the society.

Alleging the State Government for baffling the people of Assam by �misquoting� the statement of the apex court, advocate Roy said that it is the government which is dictating terms in fixing the modalities of the NRC and has also wrongly quoted the statements given the Supreme Court. In his words, Assam Public Works Committee in 2009 had filed a writ petition C274/09 in the Supreme Court for determining the citizenship. This was followed by another writ petition C562/12 filed by another organisation Assam Sammilita Maha Sangha in 2012 with a plea to scrap Section 6 (A) of the Assam Accord, 1985 and also to keep 1951 as the base year for the NRC. Interestingly, in 2014, another writ petition C876/14 was filed in the Supreme Court by the All Assam Ahoms� Association demanding absolute cancellation of the Assam Accord and to earmark 1951 to be the base year for NRC.

Speaking about these writs, advocate Dhruba Kumar Saha, working president of the society said that the Supreme Court has not given any decision to any of these writ petitions. Instead, the court has suggested for constituting a larger bench of judges for a detailed analysis of the petitions. �Since the Supreme Court has opined for increasing the number of judges, hence this present process of NRC with 1951 or 1971 as the base year cannot continue. We want that names of the people must be enrolled in the NRC. But the modalities or the preconditions must be revised,� Saha maintained.

It is to be mentioned that the society will host a citizen�s meet on May 4 at the Women�s College here to discuss these issues and also to clear the perplexities hovering around the NRC.

Next Story