Apex court pulls up key NRC officials Natives left out, draft is full of errors: Mahanta

Supreme Court says there was no need for them to speak to media on NRC’S final draft list; calls it ’highly improper’

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday censured Assam coordinator for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) Prateek Hajela and Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India (RG&CCI) Sailesh for speaking to the media on the final draft of the NRC for the state, thereby committing contempt of court for which they can be sent to jail.

A bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi and RF Nariman expressed its strong disapproval of the public statements that Hajela made after the final draft of NRC was published on July 30, excluding four million residents of Assam. But the judges spared Hajela and Sailesh from further action.

“We could have taken a stern action but you still have to do a lot of work for the final NRC,” justice Nariman told the two officials.

Terming the duo’s statements “highly improper”, the court asked the officers to be “cautious in future” and also stopped them from speaking to the media again. The SC will now take up the matter on August 16, a date fixed on the last hearing on July 31.

Tuesday’s special hearing was convened by the judges to convey their concern to Hajela and Sailesh. Justice Gogoi said he and justice Nariman were “disturbed”

A lot of indigenous people have not made it to the list...the name of Mohammed Ali, an indigenous Assamese Muslim, from Saidpur in my constituency is missing. PRAFULLA KUMAR MAHANTA, Former Assam CM

by the duo’s comments and termed them “unfortunate.”

Visibly furious, the judge at the outset said: “You are officers of the court. What is all this? What you say also reflects on the court. You are a court-appointed officer.”

Justice Nariman too joined in. “Are you in any manner concerned with the claims and objections to be made? What have you said in newspapers and tell us how you are concerned with that. Who are you to say? Your job is to complete the draft,” he said.

Hajela apologised and gave his reasons for speaking to the media, only after consulting the RG&CCI . “I talked to the media to dispel apprehensions regarding dealing of complaints,” he said, offering an unconditional apology.

But justice Nariman said: “What apology? We find this very strange. Speaking for myself, I am appalled.”

Justice Gogoi reminded Hajela of its order and said the court had in the last hearing asked the Centre to submit the standard operating procedure to decide representation of those who did not figure in the NRC, while his statements suggested something else. “We have asked for a procedure and you say that any document may be included,” the judge said, quoting a newspaper report. Hajela had told a newspaper in an interview that any document would be accepted as proof of citizenship for those not in the draft.

Justice Gogoi then recalled that in its last order it was specifically said that the NRC was a draft document and no action can be taken on its basis. The judge said there was no requirement for Hajela and Sailesh to speak to the press. “Please don’t do that,” justice Nariman told the two.

The SC on July 31 said that there will be no coercive action by authorities against the four million people of Assam, whose names do not figure in NRC. GUWAHATI: Former Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, who led a six-year agitation against illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the 1980s, leading to the so-called Assam Accord, has said the provisional National Register of Citizens (NRC) made public on July 30 was riddled with errors.

It has left out many indigenous people, even tribals, he said.

He said the registry, a database of all Indians citizens in Assam, will not on its own resolve the state’s longstanding problem of illegal migrants. “The NRC is to enumerate Indian citizens, not to identify or deal with foreigners, according to its legal provisions,” said Mahanta, a student leader in the 1980s,who went on to become India’s youngest chief minister riding a wave of popular support.

The then Rajiv Gandhi-led government had signed the Assam Accord on August 15, 1985, with the All Assam Students’ Union, of which Mahanta was president, ending the agitation.

Popular support had swept his newly formed AGP to power that year. Its appeal has since shrunk.

Mahanta criticised the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp)-with whom his party, the Asam Gana Parishad (AGP), shares power in the state -- for bringing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The bill seeks to grant citizenship to Hindus migrants from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, apart from Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians.

Prafulla Kumar Mahanta reiterated his party would pull out of Assam’s Sarbananda Sonowal-led BJP government if the Narendra Modi government passed the bill. “It is possible that the BJP will pass the bill before parliamentary elections to win votes of illegal Bangladeshi Hindus.”

Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said the bill goes against the “Assam accord itself and secularism”.

“Do Pakistan or Arab countries ever say all Muslims in the world are welcome to settle in their countries? Only one country does that, which is Israel?”

The bill, if passed, would instantly make Bharatiya Janata Party unpopular, Mahanta said.

Of the state’s 32.9 million residents, over 4 million (40,07,707) were excluded from the registry being finalised under the Supreme Court’s watch.

A final registry will be released after claims and objections of those left out are settled.

“Lot of indigenous people have not made it to the list. To give an example, (the names of) one of our party’s central committee member Dhrubojyoti Sharma from the Rangia area and five of his family members are missing. Similarly, the name of Mohammed Ali, an indigenous Assamese Muslim, from Saidpur in my constituency is missing.”

Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said bureaucrats under the guidance of the Supreme Court had “put in a lot of efforts”. “But many officers have treated the matter casually, not seriously. During the period of revision for claims and objections, if everyone works hard to correct anomalies, only then we will get a correct NRC.”

The Assam Accord, officially called a memorandum of understanding, has three main features on dealing with illegal migrants.

It sets 1966 as the base year to detect “foreigners”. Migrants, who entered Assam between 1966 and 1971, were to be identified and their names suspended from the electoral rolls for 10 years. Finally, anybody who entered the state illegally on or after March 25, 1971, will be treated as a foreigner.

Prafulla Kumar Mahanta demanded “constitutional safeguards” like those available in Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, which make it difficult for outsiders to buy property there, for an effective solution to the migrants’ issue.

The former Assam chief minister said the Centre should also raise the issue with Bangladesh.

“Let us begin negotiations, why should we make assumptions right now,” Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said, on whether the neighbouring country would accept deported migrants.