GUWAHATI, Sept 24 - Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary today told the Assembly that the State government wants the Supreme Court to share NRC-related matters with the government and make those public, as the issue was sensitive and that law and order was a State subject.
Patowary added that the State government had filed two affidavits before the Supreme Court to retain the five citizenship documents rejected by the apex court.
Replying to a question from Aminul Islam (AIUDF), Patowary said that both the State government and the Centre � as well as the Congress party � wanted NRC-related matters to be shared by the Supreme Court that has been monitoring the NRC update process in Assam.
�NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela has submitted a report to the Supreme Court in a sealed cover. We do not know what is there in the report. The Supreme Court has asked Hajela not to share information with anybody, including the legislature, the executive and the judiciary (high court). But both the State government and the Centre should have access to it, as it is a sensitive matter and law and order happens to be a State subject. We will contest it in the court,� Patowary said.
The Sate BJP had a few days back expressed its displeasure over the exclusion of five documents by the Supreme Court which were earlier recognized as citizenship proofs, and alleged that Hajela had unitarily submitted a report to the apex court following which the court rejected those five documents.
Earlier, Aminul Islam, Nurul Huda and Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha raised supplementary questions alleging serious harassment to genuine Indian citizens by the foreigners tribunals (FTs) and Border Police even as the NRC update process was on.
They said that several cases were imposed on a large number of Indian citizens. Moreover, the frequent changes in the NRC modalities were causing severe hardship to the people, they added.
�FTs are unnecessarily harassing people as the tribunals do not have service rules. Parallel notices have been served on people whose cases are already under the scrutiny of the FTs,� they said.
Purkayastha alleged that the whimsical functioning of the FTs and changes in NRC modalities had already compelled some people to commit suicide. �Hajela�s role should be probed,� he added.
Patowary in his reply said that every step was being taken so that names of no Indian citizen were left out of the NRC while ensuring that all illegal foreigners were detected.
