Supreme Court refuses to extend Assam NRC deadline

New Delhi/Guwahati: The Centre on Thursday suffered a setback as Supreme Court refused to entertain its plea for extending the deadline for update of NRC (National Registry of Citizens) from December 31, 2017,to July 31, 2018.

The court  rejected the Centre’s plea that it would amount to “encroaching” into executive domain.

A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R.F. Nariman pulled up the government for showing laxity in implementing  the series of directions passed by it for fencing the porus border of Bangladesh/Pakistan.

The Bench orally observed, “What we are asking you is to protect the country, protect India and what you are doing is stopping the progress even in border fencing. Should we leave the fate of this country to your governance? When we interfere you talk about separation of power.”

The bench made the oral observation after attorney-general K.K. Venugopal  sought time from the bench for extending the deadline for update of NRC to July 2018.

Justice Nariman said “suppose we extend the deadline till April, 2018, you will again come and say please extend the deadline further.” Mr Venugopal objected to the order saying the judiciary was encroaching into the executive domain.

The A-G said the court cannot fix the deadline for the NRC as it was purely an executive function and any interference from the court would amount to encroaching into the executive domain.

Justice Gogoi then heard ASG Mehta who argued that India cannot be permitted to become the capital of illegal migrants from across the world.