The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to provide a copy of the full report of Assam NRC Co-ordinator Prateek Hajela to the Centre on what excluded citizens could offer as proof of ancestry.
“We are extremely interested in having a copy,” Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal submitted.
To this, Justice Ranjan Gogoi replied, “You may be interested, but we have to balance it. The court has called for the report, now it is the discretion of the court to give it to you or not. First you respond to this suggestion (of Mr. Hajela that excluded citizens be allowed to produce additional documents to prove their legacy), then we will see about it.”
Later, in the court’s order, Justice Gogoi recorded that “the Attorney General has sought a copy of the co-ordinator’s report. We are of the view that what has been set out in the order (of the court) would be sufficient for the Union of India, stakeholders to indicate their views on it.”
In the previous hearing on August 28, the apex court had noted how the ouster of 40 lakh people in the draft NRC raised “human problems of a huge magnitude.”
‘Re-doing’ exercise
However, the previous hearing had also seen the Bench of Justices Gogoi and Rohinton Nariman raise questions about the Centre’s willingness, expressed in its draft Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for receiving claims and objections, to allow claimants another chance to prove their Indian ancestry by submitting fresh documents.
It had even indicated that giving a second opportunity to claimants would “upset the apple cart” and amount to “re-doing the entire exercise” of NRC.
The court’s questions had prompted Mr. Venugopal to plead that the government was only giving “another chance to people who risk losing all their rights.” Finally, the Bench had ordered Mr. Hajela to file a report on the ramifications of the Centre’s proposal.