Irked by the Centre and Assam Government “dragging their feet” on fencing the Indo-Bangla border to check entry of illegal Bangladeshi migrants, the Supreme Court on Wednesday appointed senior lawyer Upmanyu Hazarika as a Court Commissioner to visit Assam’s border areas and report the ground reality to court by June 30. TheBench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and RF Nariman got an impression that since its order of December 17, 2014 to complete fencing of borders within three months, no effective steps were undertaken both by the Centre to conduct fencing and Assam to increase patrolling along the borders. The Court was monitoring implementation of its judgment.
“On a reading of the affidavit of Union and State, we get an impression that both are dragging their feet. There has been no progress on issues, particularly with regard to border fencing,” said the Bench. SC directed Hazarika to visit the Indo-Bangla border running through Assam and submit an interim report to court in three weeks followed by a final report before June 30. The Centre will allocate Rs five lakh towards meeting his expenses of travel and logistics.
On the other important aspect of updating National Register of Citizens (NRC), the Court sought response of the Centre, Census Registrar and the Assam Government to an application filed by NGO Assam Sanmilita Mahasangh where concerns were raised that going by the March 25, 1971 cut-off, even children of migrants would be counted as Indian citizens.
Explaining the dangerous consequence of this action, advocate Somiran Sharma said that children of an illegal migrant born on Indian soil after March 1971 will be registered in NRC as also those illegal migrants who had an Indian spouse. It was on December 3, 2004 when the Citizenship Act was amended requiring parents to be Indians. The NRC Coordination panle head Prateek Hajela informed court that this stage will arise at time of scrutiny when they expect the Centre will clarify.