Top court raps Centre & Assam on citizen register

Guwahati: The Supreme Court on Tuesday came down heavily on the process of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) while observing that ordinary people cannot trust the Assam government on NRC.

Referring the record presented by solicitor general Tushar Mehta, the bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi observed, “Forty lakh people were not included in Assam NRC means they were, prima-facie, foreigners, but tribunals declared only 52,000 as foreign and of this, the government has deported only 162.”

He said, “How can people have confidence in the Assam government? You are creating confusion.”

Mr Mehta maintained that all those 40 lakh people left out of the NRC in Assam can’t be termed as illegal immigrants. “They can be prima facie called so but the non-inclusion in NRC can’t make one illegal foreigner,” he submitted adding that condition of the detention centres was sub-human.

The solicitor general in his submission on behalf of Central government also said that 938 persons are at present detained in six detention centres in Assam out of which 823 have been declared as foreigners by tribunals.

The Central government submitted this to court in response to the January 28 queries of the apex court which had asked the Centre and the state to provide the details of the functional detention centres in Assam and the foreigners detained there during the last 10 years.

Mr Mehta told the court that both the Centre and the state have filed their detailed affidavits.