The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended deadline for publication of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) list in Assam to August 31.
The top court order came after the NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela requested for more time to ensure that draft lists and the list of new names (added after considering exclusion/inclusion) are published.
The bench of chief justice Ranjan Gogoi and justice FR Nariman also directed the NRC coordinator Hajela to publish notice asking all stakeholders to appear before the court on August 7 at 3 pm to consider their issues regarding the NRC.
All petitioners, who had approached the court raising their issues, will now be heard on August 7, the Supreme Court said.
The apex court, however, rejected pleas of the Centre, Assam seeking 20 per cent sample verification to find out wrongful inclusions or exclusions in the NRC.
The plea was dismissed after NRC coordinator told the Supreme Court that there was no need for further re-verification as over 72 lakh people had been re-verified already to consider exclusion/inclusion of names in the list.
The bench had taken note of the submission of solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the state government that they be allowed to undertake verification of 20 per cent random samples of citizens for wrongful inclusions or exclusions in the NRC.
The Centre and Assam government had earlier sought from the Supreme Court extension of the July 31 deadline for publication of the NRC.