Supreme Court raps Modi govt. on NRC; says MHA trying to destroy process

New Delhi: Pulling up the Centre over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that the Union home ministry comes up with different stories to destroy the process.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to relax the July 31 deadline for publishing Assam’s final National Register of Citizens (NRC) as it expressed its disapproval of the Centre’s plea for putting the updation work on hold after the Lok Sabha election schedule is announced.

“The Ministry of Home Affairs is bent upon that NRC work is not carried out. The entire effort of the Ministry is to destroy this process. If you want NRC work to go on, there are 1,001 ways of doing it. The government is not co-operating,” Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said.

The apex court’s observation came after home ministry submitted a plea for withdrawal of 167 companies of combined armed forces for two weeks from Assam as they will be deployed for elections. However, the plea was rejected by a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi saying the Centre is not cooperating and it seems the entire effort of the home ministry is to destroy the NRC process.