In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that the names of those people not included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will not be made public and the people need to approach the NRC verification centres for further verification of their documents.
Stating that this decision would help maintain the law and order situation in the State, the NRC State coordinator, Prateek Hajela on Tuesday approached the apex court seeking permission not to disclose the names of people who don’t get their names in the updated NRC.
Hajela also sought the apex court’s permission for verification of the documents at the NRC verification centres.
The two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rahintan Fali Nariman accepted the requests and asked Hajela to take all steps to publish the full NRC lists within June 30, 2018.
Hajela gave an overall update on the NRC verification works over which the apex court expressed satisfaction.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday had a detailed discussion on the NRC with Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal at North Block in New Delhi, weeks before the second draft NRC publication.
Senior officials from the Union Home Ministry as well as officials from the State government were present in the meeting.
“We had a detailed discussion over NRC with the Home Minister. The publication of the first phase of NRC was peaceful and we hope, people will cooperate in the second phase too,” said Chief Minister Sonowal after the meeting.