Guwahati, July 17: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi today said the state government would soon file an "interim application" in the Supreme Court to consider all voter lists from 1985 to 2014 as additional documents for citizens to include their names in the ongoing update of National Register of Citizens, 1951.
An interim application is made between the start of the proceedings and the trial itself. It is an application to the court seeking orders or directions on important public issues. "Since the Supreme Court has not accepted our affidavit, we will file an interim document before the court considering the urgency of the issue. By making such a plea before the apex court, my government is not deviating from the modalities prepared to update the NRC," Gogoi told reporters here this afternoon.
According to the existing modalities, the NRC is being updated based on the NRC of 1951, electoral rolls up to the midnight of March 24, 1971 and in their absence, the list of admissible documents issued upto March 24, 1971.
"All voter lists from 1985 have been prepared on the basis of the 1971 electoral rolls. This is not my observation. It is the job done by the Election Commission. So what is wrong on the part of the government to request the Supreme Court to consider voter lists from 1985 to 2014 as the additional or supporting documents for the NRC? It is only the Congress which is advocating 1971 as the cut-off year for the NRC update and all other issues to solve the vexed illegal migrants problem in the state," Gogoi said.
On the other hand, the chief minister blamed the Centre for the continuing influx of illegal migrants to the state from Bangladesh.
Reacting to the latest report of a commission formed by the Supreme Court that infiltration is still continuing because of several loopholes in guarding the India-Bangladesh border, Gogoi told reporters it is the responsibility of the Centre to seal the international border as well as guard it.
"I have never said the infiltration from Bangladesh has stopped. But the state government is not responsible for guarding the international border. The Centre has deployed the Border Security Force to do the job. Why does not the Centre ask the BSF why infiltration is still on? My government is only responsible to detect illegal migrants who entered the state," Gogoi said.
The commission headed by Upamanyu Hazarika, a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, submitted his report to the court on Tuesday. The court had appointed the commission after observing that the Centre and the Assam government were "dragging their feet" in the matter of border fencing, construction of border roads, night patrolling and floodlights along the India-Bangladesh border.
