Assam NRC chief seeks removal of illegal voters from electoral rolls

Guwahati: The Assam Coordinator of the National Register of Citizens, Hitesh Dev Sarma, wanted the Supreme Court to allow it to revise the NRC draft, deleting the illegal voters from the electoral rolls.

The NRC Coordinator also prayed for time to finish re-verification of the citizens' list as the Court flagged irregularities. The draft list published in August 2019 excluded 19.06 lakh of the 3.3 crore applications citing a lack of adequate documents.

Need a "comprehensive and time-bound re-verification of the citizens' list", citing irregularities, Sarma pointed out to the Court.

Sarma also wanted the revising of a supplementary list under the Schedule of Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.

All of the rejected people can approach the Foreigners' Tribunal within 120 days of receiving the rejection slip, which can then declare a man foreigner based on the Assam Accord of 1985.

"Pass appropriate directions that the re-verification be done under the supervision of a monitoring committee in the respective districts and such committee may be preferably represented by the respective district judge, district magistrate and superintendent of police," Dev Sharma said.

"Pass such other or further directions as your lordships may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case," the application added.