Top court brushes aside criticism

New Delhi/rangia/guwahati: The Supreme Court Thursday brushed aside criticism and statements made in the Assam Assembly and outside relating to the exercise carried out for National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said it wanted the deadline of August 31 be adhered to.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice R F Nariman referred to the report of Assam NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela in which he mentioned about leakage of information on it in Assam Assembly and certain statements made by leader of opposition there and Santanu Bharali, legal advisor to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. The bench said it was not concerned with any of such statements and was only looking at the entire exercise of NRC being completed within the deadline of August 31.
Meanwhile, several eminent members of Assam’s civil society have urged the Chief Justice of India to direct the NRC authority to reschedule the re-verification hearings and hold the exercise within the respective districts of applicants so they don’t have to travel hundreds of kilometres at short notice. The development followed reports of thousands of impoverished Muslims pledging their valuables before making a mad rush to reach the hearing centres, some over 600 km away. (with PTI)