After the major hassle and doubts targeting the final draft of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a plea seeking the National Register of Citizens (NCR) be updated for the state of Tripura. The need of NRC was necessary in order to identify the illegal immigrants in the state.
The plea by the Tripura People’s Front was heard by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who tagged the case to be heard along with a similar case the court is seized of. The need for updating the NRC for Tripura was emphasized in the petition and was based on the fact that it was necessary to identify and deport illegal immigrants in the state.
The petitioners prayed for a direction from court to direct the authorities concerned to update the NRC. They also sought fencing of the Tripura-Bangladesh border to prevent influx of illegal immigrants. The NRC is a list of Indian citizens of Assam. It was prepared in 1951, following the census of that year.
The process of updating the NRC was taken up in Assam on a Supreme Court order in 2013. In order to wean out illegal migrants from Bangladesh and other adjoining areas, the NRC was updated under the Citizenship Act, 1955, and according to rules framed in the Assam Accord.
The process of filing claims and objections with regard to the NRC released by Assam was flagged off on 25 September and will continue till 23 November.
About 28.9 million of the 32.9 million applicants were included in the final draft NRC released on 30 July. People who had been excluded from the final draft, including 248,000 classified as doubtful voters, can file their claims for inclusion in the NRC.
Courtesy: NewsBharati
