Assam NRC: Follow Due Procedure In The Adjudication Of Claims For Inclusion In the Final List, SC Tells Coordinator [Read Order]

The vacation bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, in addressing State Coordinator Prateek Hajela, observed, The top court's remarks come close on the heels of the widely-reported arrest and lodging in a detention centre for foreigners of a retired soldier, a Kargil war veteran, after a Foreigners Tribunal declared him, who had rendered three decades of his life to the Indian Army, an illegal immigrant. Earlier this month, the apex court had reiterated that the final NRC for the state of Assam be readied by July 31, regardless of the failure to pursue their claims by those who have filed objections to their names not having been included in the draft NRC published in July last year. Hajela submitted before a bench of Chief Justice Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Nariman that while the adjudication of the objections against exclusion from the NRC has already commenced, the claimants have failed to appear in most cases. The NRC must come by July 31, maybe a day sooner but not even one day after, remarked the bench.