The Supreme Court has directed 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 Hajela.
The court has asked the government to notify the transfer within seven days. At the hearing, Attorney General KK Venugopal asked Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi if there was a reason for the transfer, to which the CJI responded: “is there a transfer without a reason?”. But he refused to divulge it.
A special bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices S A Bobde and R F Nariman ordered the inter-cadre transfer of Hajela on deputation. Hajela had overseen the mammoth exercise of finalisation and publication of Assam NRC which was released on 31st August this year.
Hajela, who is from Madhya Pradesh, had submitted a confidential report to the Supreme Court in which he is believed to have sought the transfer away from Assam, that has been cleaved along communal and linguistic lines over the sensitive issue of NRC.
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