New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday extended the deadline for publication of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam by a month to August 31 while rejecting the pleas seeking permission for 20 per cent sample re-verification. The Centre and the Assam government had sought permission for sample re-verification to find out wrongful inclusions, especially in districts bordering Bangladesh, and exclusions of persons in the NRC which was to be published by July 31. While dismissing the pleas of the Centre and the state, the apex court took note of the report of Assam NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela that in the course of consideration and adjudication of the claims, of those who have been left out in the draft NRC, re-verification of 27 per cent persons has already been done.

The top court, which had been reiterating that it will not extend the deadline for publication of the final NRC, took note of the report and the reasons for seeking extension put forth by the Assam NRC coordinator and allowed him to finish the task by August 31. "We take the view that having regard to the grounds on which the coordinator in his report of July 10 has sought for extension of time up to August 31 for publishing the final NRC, extension prayed for should be allowed. We accordingly grant the aforesaid extension of time," a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice R F Nariman said. Attorney General K K Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing Centre and the state respectively, vehemently contended that re-verification of 20 per cent people was needed as the infiltration had been the key issue with locals and it was one of the aspects in the Assam-Centre pact.