NRC officials in Assam prepare status report, SC hearing nears

Representative image

NRC officials in Assam are preparing a status report of the exercise conducted in the state to be submitted to the Registrar General of India (RGI), The Indian Express has reported.

This comes even as the officials are waiting for the Supreme Court hearing on January 6 to decide upon the future course of action.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde and comprising Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant will hear petitions filed by the All Assam Minority Students Union (AAMSU) and Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind.

"The priority right now is to prepare a status report for the RGI on the work that has been done till now. In less than a week from now, it will be prepared," Hitesh Dev Sarma, the new NRC coordinator for Assam told the newspaper.

The final NRC (National Register of Citizens) list for Assam was published on August 31 and had ended up excluding over 19 lakh people. However, five months on, rejection orders to those excluded have still not been issued, according to the report.

This means that those excluded from the list will not be able to file appeals with the Foreigners Tribunals because that can be done only after the rejection order specifies the cause for the exclusion.

Sarma said that work will proceed according to the directions of the apex court in the next hearing, but did not specify anything regarding the rejection orders.

"The next hearing of the case is on January 6. Whatever the SC says on that day, we will work according to that," Sarma told the newspaper.

The fate of Assam NRC hangs in balance after Home Minister Amit Shah's statement in Parliament in November that a fresh NRC would be conducted for Assam, along with a pan-India NRC.

Even if a pan-India NRC does not happen, the Assam government has made it clear that it plans to approach the top court and that the NRC, in its present form, will not be accepted by the state.