NEW DELHI, Oct 6 - The Supreme Court on Tuesday approved the State Government�s plea for extension of time for the verification process, revising the schedule for publication of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) to March 1, 2016.
A Division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohington Fali Nariman, resuming the hearing on NRC today gave the Union Government and the Assam Government four weeks� time to submit its Action Taken Report (ATR) on the recommendations of the Upamanyu Hazarika Commission report. Hazarika, meanwhile, submitted a second report before the apex court.
Nodal Officer for implementation of the NRC, Prateek Hajela has meanwhile, submitted an affidavit pleading for extension of time for the verification process as it required tedious examination of the submitted documents. According to the earlier schedule drawn up by the Supreme Court, the State Government was to publish the draft NRC on October 1 and the final NRC on January 1, next.
Conceding to the plea for grant of two more months for completion of the verification process, the Supreme Court revised the schedule. According to the fresh schedule, the draft NRC would now be published on January 1 and the final NRC on March 1 next.
Meanwhile, the All Assam Students� Union (AASU) submitted a plea for appointment of Central observers to monitor the verification process.
The Supreme Court, however, refused to accept the plea. Though it authorised Hajela to use the services of gazetted officials and to requisition the services of as many State Government officials as he required for the verification process.
The Supreme Court also directed Hajela to submit a report on the work completed so far. The report should cover the verification of
application forms, aims and objectives, field verification reports.
The NRC Nodal officer have to file a report along with the progress on November 5, and fixed November 15, as the next date of hearing.
Meanwhile, Assam Public Works (APWs)�s through its counsel Arvind Kumar Sharma filed an additional affidavit suggesting a modality for the verification process.
According to Abhijeet Sharma, Projection of actual household number in Assam as on August 30 is 68.17 lakh, while according to 2011 census report the total household number is 63.8 lakh, which means that 4.32 lakh households have been left out.
Assuming that there are six persons in a household, at least 24 lakh people have been left out from NRC, Sharma claimed adding that these are all indigenous people.
Further, Sharma claimed that Muslim population in Assam has jumped in nine border districts, according to the census report.
It was Sharma�s claim that Muslim population has jumped over 4% in 2011 as compared to the 2001 census. Nine districts � Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Morigaon, Nagaon, Karimganj, Hailakandi, Bongaigaon, and Darrang were Muslim-majority. The numbers was six in the 2001 census.
Morigaon, Bongaigaon and Darrang are three districts where Muslims have become a majority, according to the 2011 census, APWs Affidavit pointed out.
APWs affidavit said that the religion of a constituency is not a factor. But the most alarming part of the growth of Muslim voters in Assam is that this abnormal growth is entirely due to infiltration of the post 1971 Bangladeshi illegal migrants.
It is of vital national interest and survival of Assam, that the scrutiny of the �applications� of NRC is carried out most stringently the APWs said, suggesting modality for verification.
