Assam NRC: SC ‘NO’ to plea on harassment

In a big development into the Assam NRC issue, the Supreme Court has refused to entertain plea alleging harassment of minorities during the process.

The plea was filed seeking the Apex Court’s intervention to look into the alleged harassment of people belonging to religious and lingusitic minorities, on the pretext of detecting and deporting illegal foreigners.

The Supreme Court has instead asked the petitioner to approach the Gauhati High Court with their grievances.

“Petitioner would be at liberty to approach the High Court for appropriate
relief,” the Supreme Court said.

A bench of comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli asked the petitioner to go before the High Court, stating that the assistance of the judgment of the High Court would be beneficial in
deciding different aspects.

Besides, the petition also sought SC direction to authorities to not delete/exclude names from the ‘final draft’ of the NRC published on 31.08.2019; stop further identification of ‘Doubtful’ voters without proper verification; finalise the draft NRC only after providing opportunity to the person whose name are not there in the 2019 list to appeal against the rejection of their applications.