New Delhi: In a significant move, the Supreme Court has admitted a writ petition for revision of the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the supplementary list of the register – updated in 2019 in Assam – and has issued notices to the Union government, the state government, the official appointed to oversee the implementation of the NRC in Assam, and the registrar general of India (RGI), seeking their responses on the matter.
While the draft NRC published in July 2018 kept out 1.9 million people, the supplementary NRC list, published in August 2019, had more than 31.1 million who were found to be eligible for inclusion in the registry.
The SC’s August 22 order, passed by a bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Atul Chandurkar, has come at a time when Assam is just months away from a crucial election.
Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has already been flogging the bogey of ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘Bangladeshis’ to attract the votes of the majority Assamese community.
Organisations like the All Assam Students Union (AASU), at the forefront of the anti-foreigner agitation in the state, had already punched holes into the draft NRC, claiming that the 1.9 million figure was too low for likely ‘illegal immigrants’ residing in the north-eastern border state.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
