New Delhi: Close on the heels of the meeting between Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India (RGI) has told the Supreme Court that the publication of the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) can happen only by next July, as “hurriedly preparing the Draft NRC may cause a law and order problem in the state”.
The NRC update is being monitored by the apex court and the last NRC was published in 1951.
The earlier date set by the Supreme Court for the state to complete the publication of the Draft NRC was March 31, 2018. However, Sonowal, in July had said that the NRC draft would be prepared by December 31, 2017. The SC then had expressed its displeasure in a CM interfering with a process monitored by the apex court.
A bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Robinson Fali Nariman said the apex court did not appreciate any other authority intervening in the national register preparation process when the court was monitoring it.
Now, RGI feels that “such a huge task cannot be attempted to complete hurriedly.”
“It may not be possible to adhere to the timeline to publish the draft NRC before December 31, 2017. All care and caution are taken to ensure that the possible misgivings and apprehensions of the population against the NRC are reduced to a minimum extent. If such a huge task is attempted to be completed hurriedly, it may not only create complications but may result into an unintended errors in the list causing a sense of dissatisfaction amongst the population to a major extent which should be avoided keeping in view the law and order scenario resulting therefrom,” said the RGI in its application to the top court.
The application also mentions the recent hi-level meeting chaired by the Home Minister which also had BJP leader, Himanta Biswas Sharma in attendance, apart from The CM and other officials.
“Union Home Minister took a meeting in which Chief Minister of Assam, senior officers of the Government of Assam, Union Home Secretary, senior officers of Ministry of Home Affairs, and RGI to assess the present status of NRC update and associated law and order issues.
A detailed assessment was made about security scenario during various stages of preparation of Draft NRC,” stated Sailesh.
The application notes that hurrying the publication of the draft NRC might result in compromising on the “consistency and accuracy” of the NRC update.
“Before the draft NRC is published, all the results need to be subjected to various Quality Checks to ensure consistency and accuracy.
This will require two months’ time period in addition to the deadline of December 31 this year. A huge task is already accomplished and the remaining task also can be accomplished without any avoidable delay. However considering the nature of issues stated, it would be necessary that the timeline which ends on 31.12.2017 be permitted to be extended till 31.7.2018,” reads the application.
Earlier, the NRC update had missed the deadline December 31, 2015. This application now casts a fresh air of uncertainty over the publication of the draft NRC. The court had set the 31st December 2017 deadline after constant follow-ups with the authorities concerned – Registrar General of India and Office of the State Coordinator of NRC, Assam.
The apex court had already expressed its displeasure several times at the tardy progress of the entire exercise. During its last affidavit before the court, State Coordinator Prateek Hajela had contended that 1.30 crore documents were yet to be verified.
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