The Supreme Court today extended the deadline for publication of the final draft of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) from June 30 to July 30 on account of floods in three districts, time consumption in mop-up operations and activities related to database preparation.
The top court accepted the reasons given by the Centre and the NRC state coordinator for over-shooting the June 30 deadline.
A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman accepted the report filed by NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela detailing the stages at which the preparation of the final NRC draft is, the time that would be taken for the final mop-up operations and the reasons as to why the June 30 deadline could not be adhered to.
Hajela in his report proposed to publish the complete draft on July 30, 2018 and said that the deadline will be maintained under any circumstances.
Giving reasons for overshooting the June 30 deadline, Hajela's report said, "Mop up operations have taken a lot of time. It is humbly submitted that earlier experience indicates that in any activity the initial/starting phase takes a lot of time. After stabilisation, whereas 90-95 per cent achievement happens at high speed, the remaining 5 per cent completion takes a lot of time. This has been the case here also."
The second reason cited in the report is about the activity of database preparation which involves data consolidation and can start only after completion of all data entries including quality checks.
The report stated that starting June 13, floods have hampered NRC works for around 8-10 days in the three districts of Cachar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi.
"Around 89 numbers of NSKs (NRC Sewa Kendras) were affected directly out of 303 NSKs of these districts. However, the works of almost all the NSKs of these three districts got adversely affected as most of the NRC officials are drawn from various line departments and their services were required for flood relief," it said.
The bench after considering the reasons extended the deadline for publication of the final draft of the NRC on or before July 30, 2018.
The bench suo motu asked Hajela as to whether in view of the nature of the work performed by him, he would be more comfortable in doing his assigned duties if some kind of "protection/ security is provided to him and if so the agency which would provide such protection/security".
Hajela told the bench that in addition to what has been provided to him as on date some further adequate provisions, if made, would enable him to effectively and fearlessly discharge the duties assigned to him by the court.
He indicated that he would prefer to have such measures provided to him by the state government.
"We accordingly direct the Chief Secretary of the State and the Director General of Police, Government of Assam to forthwith review the situation including the security cover presently provided to Hajela and his immediate family members including his children," the bench said.
It directed the two officials to interact with Hajela on the security aspects and do the needful which would enable him to ensure that the duty entrusted by the court can be performed by him with utmost devotion and sincerity and free from all mental worries and shackles.
"The Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, Government of Assam, will take immediate action in the matter and submit a report in a sealed cover to this court within seven days from today," it said.
Hajela had last week said it would not be possible to release the final draft of the NRC as scheduled on June 30 due to the floods in state. The NRC is being prepared to identify illegal migrants in Assam.
The apex court said it will consider all the interlocutory applications and other related matters on July 31.
The first draft of the NRC for Assam was published in December end as per the top court's direction. The first draft, which is a list of the state's citizens, was published on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 where names of 1.9 crore people out of the 3.29 crore applicants were incorporated.
Assam, which had faced influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th century, is the only state having an NRC, which was first prepared in 1951.
The top court had earlier said that the claims of those citizens, whose names do not figure in the draft NRC for Assam published by December 31 last year, would be scrutinised and included in the subsequent list, if found genuine.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
