'Home Ministry trying to destroy process': Supreme Court on Assam's NRC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Union home ministry over the National Register if Citizens (NRC) in Assam, saying that the ministry comes up with different stories to destroy process.

The top court rapped Ministry of Home Affairs for its plea seeking to stall the NRC work for two weeks keeping in mind the role of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the election duty. Reiterating that July 31 deadline for the completion of NRC exercise will not be extended, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi

"The Home Ministry is coming up with all sorts of excuses to delay the NRC (National Register of Citizens) process in Assam. The entire effort of the Home Ministry is to destroy the process of NRC. Should we summon the Home Secretary? Because AG and SG are not briefed properly," said Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.

The top court had said on January 24 that the July 31, 2019 deadline to finalise the NRC for Assam cannot be extended.

The court’s observation came while dismissing a plea for withdrawal of 167 companies of combined armed forces. The court added that the central forces can’t be withdrawn from Assam.

The government sought the suspension of the NRC process to which court said “it is too much to ask for both”. The top court ordered that elections and NRC should go on simultaneously.

The court told the government wanted the citizen register process to go on there were “1001 ways to do so”.

The draft National Register of Citizens for Assam was published on July 30, 2018 in which the names of 2.89 crore of the 3.29 crore people were included. The names of 40,70,707 people did not figure in the list.

(With PTI inputs)