- The Supreme Court of India issues notice against the action of the new NRC-Assam State co-coordinator
- Court had previously told that “What has been done by the co-ordinator was beyond the intentions of the Court.”
New Delhi: In petitions challenging NRC-Assam Coordinator’s actions in reviewing and deleting names from the already finalized National Register of Citizens for Assam, a bench headed by the Chief Justice of Supreme Court of India issued a notice and sought respose from the State Co-ordinator within 4 weeks. The Chief Justice was hearing a petition filed by Maulana Arshad Madani, president Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, against a controversial notification issued by the new state coordinator of Assam, Hitesh Dev Sarma.
Asking the state coordinator for a written reply within 4 weeks, the Court indicated that his actions were beyond what the Supreme Court had originally intended. The contention before the court was that before issuing the circular, the state co-ordinator should have sought permission from the NRC monitoring bench of the Supreme Court under whose orders NRC was finalised in Assam from 2014 to 2019.
It is worthy to be noted that the petition was filed by Advocate-on-Record Fuzail Ayyubi and Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared before the court on behalf of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. The petition says that the State Coordinator has acted blatantly and violating the instructions and orders issued by the Supreme Court from time to time. While the Court had repeatedly ordered that any actions regarding NRC should be only after permission of the Court, the new Coordinator has acted unilaterally in reviewing and deleting names, the petition states. Therefore, Jamiat Ulema e Hind had demanded that contempt action should be initiated against the new Coordinator for violation of repeated orders of the court. The petition further stated that while the entire process of NRC in Assam has been concluded under the constant supervision of Court, which took into account the views of all stakeholders, the actions of Mr. Hitesh Dev Sarma are to the effect that they would defeat all the progress gained by the Court’s constant supervision.
Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and All Assam Minorities Students Union (AAMSU) had approached the top court against a circular issued by Hitesh Dev Sarma in October last year by way of which identification and deletion of names from the finalised NRC, Assam was directed. Though the petitioners had initially filed contempt petitions against Mr. Hitesh Dev Sarma, on a previous hearing the Court had asked the petitioners to amend the petitions so as to remove the prayer for contempt.
Reacting to this petition, Maulana Arshad Madani, President of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, said that our lawyers have filed a petition with full preparations in which an attempt has been made to draw the attention of the court to important points. He said that, at first glance, it seems that the new State Coordinator has exceeded his authority in this matter. Maulana Madani said that the issuance of notice by the court against the state coordinator and directing him to explain why he did not seek permission from the court before issuing such a circular, shows that his move was wrong, but at this point, a very important question arises: on whose will did he do so?
Maulana Madani explained that the entire process of NRC is being monitored by the Supreme Court itself, even when the Registrar of India and the then State Coordinator had spoken to an English newspaper, then the court had severely reprimanded him and said that he will not do anything without informing the court. The court has already ruled out the need for re-verification or the NRC in July 2019, so here the very important question arises that when the NRC process has been completed, and the problem of about 1.9 million people left out from the list is still remaining, in which there are about 1.3 million non-Muslims, and about 600,000 Muslims. By issuing such an order for re-verification by the State Coordinator on his own, he is once again trying to create an atmosphere of fear in the entire state and is also trying to somehow expel those who have proved their citizenship from the NRC.
Maulana Madani said that Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has been striving for the Assam citizenship issue from the very beginning irrespective of the religion and caste because it believes that it is a humanitarian issue in which a small mistake can ruin the lives of entire families, and in that case a major humanitarian crisis can also arise in the country.
He said that when the Guwahati High Court refused to accept the Panchayat Certificate as proof of citizenship, the lives of about 4.8 million married women in Assam were questionable due to this order. The decision threatened the citizenship of about 2.5 million Muslim and 2.3 million Hindu women. At this critical time, it was the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind that took this important issue to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court valued the stand of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and accepted the Panchayat Certificate as proof of citizenship. “I’ve never been happier in my life attached with Jamiat than I am today,” he said. Without naming anyone, he said, “Some people have looked at this issue through the lens of religion from the beginning, but we look at this issue from the perspective of humanity. That is why we are fighting for the interests of all the citizens of Assam in the courts on the issue of citizenship.
At last, he said that in every such case, we got justice from the court, so in this case too, we expect that whatever the court decides, it will be in the wider interest of all the citizens of Assam.
