New Delhi: The Supreme Court directed Friday the Centre and the State Government to transfer Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) Coordinator Prateek Hajela to Madhya Pradesh for the maximum period. The direction comes apparently on account of threat perceptions to Prateek Hajela.
A special bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices SA Bobde and RF Nariman ordered inter-cadre transfer of Hajela on deputation. Prateek Hajela had overseen the mammoth exercise of finalisation and publication of Assam NRC.
The final NRC was released August 31 with 19,06,657 of the total 3,30,27,661 applicants excluded.
The Supreme Court bench however, refused to give any reason for the transfer of Haleja.
“Is there a reason for this,” the government’s lawyer, Attorney General KK Venogupal, asked the judges. “No order will be without a reason,” the Chief Justice replied without elaborating.
This development comes as a surprise to administrators in the Assam government.
Prateek Hajela, 48, is a 1995 batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre. He was tasked with supervising the massive exercise of revising the citizen’s list in Assam, a complex project that has navigated controversies related to communal and linguistic divides. He was seen as an able technocrat who could best tackle the job.
Hajela, an IIT alumnus, however, faced criticism from political parties as well as civil society organisations over alleged errors in the citizen’s list. The strongest critics included leaders of the ruling BJP, who alleged that many Hindus, who are genuine citizens, are missing in the revised list.
Agencies
