New Delhi, July 13: The Supreme Court today asked Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal to keep off the ongoing update of the National Register of Citizens in the state, saying it wouldn't brook any interference when the top court was already "seized of the matter".
"When the Supreme Court is seized of the matter, can any other authority or organisation say we will do it?" the bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R.F. Nariman said.
The court has been monitoring the update since 2015 but the exercise - important for detection and deportation of illegal migrants from Bangladesh - has missed several deadlines.
At an earlier hearing, the court said, it had been told the update would be completed by March 31, 2017. But on June 1 this year, Sonowal, Assam's first BJP chief minister, had told reporters in Barpeta district the draft NRC would be published by December 31.
"Last time you told us that you will do it by March 31.... (Now) we have on record the statement of the chief minister regarding the completion of the NRC by December 31. Let him supervise, we will wash off our hands...," the bench told Prateek Hajela, the state-level coordinator for the register, today.
"We have spent time, money and energy for over two years. It is not fair to this court."
When the official said the deadline had not been extended on account of the chief minister, the bench noted that the coordinator's statement was "pursuant to the statement of the chief minister".
"We do not approve any other authority's intervention in the matter...," Justice Gogoi said, while allowing the state to go ahead with the December 31 deadline.
The NRC - a register prepared after the 1951 census - is being updated in Assam since 2015. It would include the names of persons, or their descendants, who appear in the NRC, 1951, or in any electoral roll or admissible document issued till the midnight of March 24, 1971.
The update is important for identifying illegal migrants who entered the state after that cut-off date so that they can be deported, according to the 1985 Assam Accord.
The cut-off is linked to the 1972 pact between Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. "The pact mentions 1971 as the cut-off year for the identification of Bangladeshi infiltrators into India," said H.R.A. Choudhury, a senior Gauhati High Court advocate and former leader of the All India United Democratic Front, which supports the cut-off date. Bangladesh had declared its independence on March 25, 1971.
The top court, in its earlier directives, had asked all states, the income tax department and the Election Commission to cooperate in preparing the draft NRC to weed out illegal migrants from Assam.
The court had issued the directives while dealing with a batch of public interest petitions that said the huge influx of migrants was resulting in periodic and, at times, fatal clashes between citizens and migrants.
