New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Centre for trying to destroy the verification process for the preparation of final National Register of Citizens currently underway in Assam.
Making a strong observation against the Union home ministry, a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Nariman, told the Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal “you are hell bent on destroying the process”.
The bench refused to pass any order at this stage on the Centre’s request to suspend the verification process for two weeks on the ground that it could not provide 167 companies of Central security forces due to deployment in election.
The CJI asked the AG, “Why do you want to withdraw the force? It looks you don’t want the NRC exercise to go on. We are left with no other option but to say that the ministry of home affairs does not want the NRC exercise to go on. We are very sorry to say that the impression the ministry of home affairs is giving is that it is not willing to continue with the NRC work. The entire effort of the ministry of home affairs is to destroy the NRC process. We are sorry to say that.”
The AG said the Central armed police force comprising the CRPF and other para military forces presently deployed in Assam for the NRC work needed to be deployed in different parts of the country.
The AG submitted that the “anticipated political atmosphere in the country would be surcharged during the elections and it would not be conducive for the NRC exercise to go on during that period also.
The CJI pointed out even if 2,700 out of available 3,000 companies are required then there are still 300 companies of CAPF left with the government. Then why do you want to disturb the 167 companies deployed for NRC work? If you want NRC work to go on, there are 1,001 ways the government of India can cooperate in completing the exercise. But the government of India does not seem to be keen on completing the process.”
In its order the Bench directed the Centre and Assam government to provide adequate number of government officials that is 3457 as indicated by the state coordinator which consists of peoples of all ranks be kept for NRC work.
