india

Updated: Jan 24, 2019 16:00 IST

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to extend the July 31 deadline for the publication of final Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC), reports ANI.

The top court ordered Assam chief secretary, state NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela, and Election Commission to meet within 7 days to decide how to conduct the citizen register verification hearings. The process for Lok Sabha elections may continue simultaneously, the court said.

Hajela told the court that there were 36.2 lakh claims for inclusion of names in final NRC. “Over2 lakh objections were filed against names included in draft till Dec 31. Notices have been issued to claimants 15 days before hearing of claims, that will start on Feb 15,” he added.

The Supreme Court had in December extended the last date to file claims and objections on inclusion of names in NRC from December 15 to December 31, 2018.

The court’s order came after the Assam government asked it to extend the deadline. The state government had asked for an urgent hearing which the court had refused but had said that it would consider the plea.

The Supreme Court had earlier allowed the populace to use five more documents to prove their citizenship and be included in the final NRC. This, the state government, had claimed was putting additional burden on the NRC authorities to make the process of inclusion fool-proof.