Himanta to move apex court for 'sons of the soil'

SC intervention to be sought for hassle-free inclusion of mes of indigenous tribal people and tea workers in NRC

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, June 20: A day after pointing out the “loopholes” in the NRC update process, Congress legislator Himanta Biswa Sarma today said he will file an interlocutory petition at the Supreme Court seeking a hassle-free procedure to include the mes of tribal indigenous people and tea garden workers in the tiol Register of Citizens.

Sarma today met State NRC coorditor Prateek Hazela who assured that he too will take up the matter with the Registrar General of India (RGI).

“The Supreme Court will take up the NRC case on July 14. We will be filing an interlocutory petition, seeking the apex court’s intervention into two issues. We will appeal for direct inclusion of the indigenous tribal people and tea garden workers after verification, and that scope should be given to non-Assamese Indians like Hindi and Bengali speaking people for including their mes in the NRC,” Sarma told reporters after meeting Hazela.

He said there are RGI guidelines through which these two issues can be resolved.

He said many indigenous tribal people and tea garden workers are uble to find their legacy data.

He also said there are Hindi and Bengali-speaking Indians who entered Assam after 1971. According to the criteria being followed in the NRC update process in the State, he said, the ‘updated NRC’ won’t have the mes of such Indians staying in the State.

This will make unteble the notion that a person of Assam whose me does not figure in the updated NRC is a foreigner. In such cases, a second inquiry will be a must to ascertain such persons’ Indian citizenship. Since this issue is not within the ambit of the State government, it has to take it up with the Register General of India.”