Assam: SC reprimands NRC coordinator & registrar for speaking to media

GUWAHATI | August 7, 2018:

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court severely reprimanded National Register of Citizens (NRC) Assam's state coordinator,Prateek Hajela and Registrar General, Sailash for speaking to the media about the process that was adopted for finalisation of the NRC draft.

The Supreme Court comprising a division bench of Justices including Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman were referring to state coordinator Prateek Hajela and registrar Shailesh.

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"Get down to work for finalization of NRC and never speak to media on this issue without SC's prior permission…How can officers appointed by the SC talk about something which is to be finalised by us," the SC fumed.

The bench further stated, "Your job isn't to go to the press, holding a brief for anyone. You are officers of the court and have been given the job to prepare NRC. We would have taken a sterner view but for the fact, you still have a lot of work to do".

Hajela, on Sunday had spoken to news agency ANI and said, among other things, those whose names don't make it to final NRC will have the right to appeal to the foreign tribunals.

"After we will publish the final NRC list post the completion of Claims and Objections, people will still have the right to appeal in the Foreigners Tribunal if they are not satisfied with the result of the process. 64 Foreign Tribunals are currently working. They have already declared few people as foreigners in the past," said Hajela.

Prateek Hajela & Shailesh were asked by the Apex court to be extremely cautious in future besides restraining them from making any further statements on the topic in the press.

The Supreme Court had earlier, pre-poned the date from August 16 to August 7 on NRC issue.

TNT-The Northeast Today with inputs from TOI