NEW DELHI: Amid criticism and statements made both inside and outside the Assam Assembly over the exercise carried out for National Register of Citizens (NRC), the Supreme Court on Thursday said it wanted the deadline of August 31 be adhered to.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice RF 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 leader of opposition there and Santanu Bharali, legal advisor to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.
The bench, which is monitoring the 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 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 bench 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 like it, who do not like it, we do not bother,” the bench said.