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Assam NRC exercise must be completed by Aug 31: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday brushed aside criticism and statements made in the Assam Assembly and outside relating to the exercise carried out for National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said it wanted the deadline of August 31 to be adhered to.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice R F Nariman referred to the report of Assam NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela in which he mentioned about leakage of information on it in Assam Assembly and certain statements made by the leader of opposition there and Santanu Bharali, legal advisor to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

The bench, which is monitoring the Assam NRC exercise, said it was not concerned with any of such statements and was only looking at the entire exercise of NRC being completed within the deadline of August 31.

"You (Hajela) have drawn our attention about the statement made by the leader of opposition regarding revealing of information in the Assembly and also about press statement by Santanu Bharali on the issue of secrecy of the data," the bench said.

"As far as the statement of the leader of the opposition is concerned, we do not need to go into it. When some orders are being passed by the judges or the court, some people criticise them," the apex court said.

"Our orders, our actions are being subjected to debates and criticism every moment. We are not bothered by it. If we will go into all this, we will never complete the task," it added.

The top court said it was not bothered about what was being said about the NRC exercise.

"What we want is that let the NRC come out within the deadline of August 31. Who likes it, who does not like it, we do not bother," the bench said.

At the outset, the bench interacted with NRC coordinator and told him that perhaps, he is seeking suggestion for maintaining the secrecy of the data collected during the exercise.

During the hearing, the apex court was told that around 33,000 people coming from an area in Kamrup district have to be verified after it was noted that there have been complaints of inadequacy in issuing notices.

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