CJI Ranjan Gogoi supports NRC, calls it base document for the future

CJI Gogoi, who hails from Assam, slammed the attempts to malign the NRC exercise and present distorted pictures by "armchair commentators" using social media.

"The social media and its tools have been used by many commentators to doublespeak on the issue. They launched a motivated tirade at a democratic institution. These commentators and their vile on the initiative (NRC) was far removed from the facts," he was quoted as saying by News18 at the launch of a book titled ‘Post-Colonial Assam’.

Justice Gogoi criticised such people saying that they were far away from ground reality and such attempts negatively impacted Assam and its development agenda.

The Chief Justice, who is from Assam, said that NRC is neither a "new or a novel idea" as it found expression as early as in 1951 and the current exercise is an attempt to update the 1951 NRC.

“Nineteen lakh or 40 lakh is not the point. But it is a base document for the future. A document on which we can refer to determine future claims. The intrinsic value of the NRC, in my view, is mutual peaceful co-existence. Progressive societies are meant to be inclusive," the CJI was quoted as saying by News18.

Justice Gogoi, who is heading the Supreme Court bench which is monitoring the NRC exercise in Assam, said "NRC was not a new or novel idea" and can be traced back to the year 1951 and it was part of Assam accord signed in 1985.

He said the current exercise is an update of the 1951 NRC.

The final list of Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) came out on Aug 31 with inclusion of 3.11 crore in the list while 19 lakh people were left out.

As many as 300 quasi-judicial bodies have been set up by the Assam government to examine the names of those left out from the list.