New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought an explanation from the Assam Government over allegations that the state coordinator for NRC was making communal statements.
“He should not be saying all this. You (Assam government) have to explain this. Whatever you want. He should not be saying all this,” a bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde observed after senior advocate Kapil Sibal drew the attention to the alleged statement made by the state NRC coordinator.
The bench was hearing the petition which also sought removal of the state coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma.
According to the Indian Express, some of the “communal” posts by Sarma were on issues related to the Citizenship Bill on Facebook. “In a post on February 13, restricted only to his friends, he had said that there were ‘lakhs and lakhs of Bangladeshis in the NRC’. In another post on November 15, 2017, Sarma had said, ‘Minority appeasement policy for the last seven decades has changed the definition of secularism’.,” he posted on his social media accounts, according to the newspaper.
Sarma, a 1989-batch Assam Civil Service officer, succeeded Prateek Hajela as Assam’s NRC coordinator. Sarma served as the executive director of the NRC from 2014 to February 2017.
Several other petitions have been filed relating to the NRC in Assam and the bench issued notices to the Centre and Assam governments and sought response within four weeks.
A petition was also heard in which it was stated that around 60 children have been excluded from the NRC but their parents have been granted citizenship through NRC .
Attorney general K.K. Venugopal and solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the Assam government respectively, said such children will not be separated from their parents.
In the order, the bench also comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Surya Kant said children whose parents have been granted citizenship through NRC will not be sent to detention centres.
The response on the petition has to be filed in four weeks.
(With PTI inputs)