Plea filed by Tripura People’s Front comes amid the raging controversy over lakhs of names missing from the final draft of the NRC for Assam

Even as the political controversy and resultant social upheaval over the recent draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam continues unabated, a plea moved in the Supreme Court has now urged for updating the NRC for the north-eastern state of Tripura too. The apex court, on Monday (October 8), issued notices to the Centre and the Election Commission on this plea.

The petition filed by the Tripura People’s Front (TPF) came up for hearing before a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph. While the bench tagged the matter to be heard along with the main petition related to the NRC for Assam, it sought a response from the Centre and the Election Commission to the issues raised by the TPF in its plea.

Citing a high incidence of a continuing, high and uncontrolled illegal immigration by Bangladeshi nationals into the north eastern state for the past five decades, the plea by TPF has sought an urgent updating of the NRC and demanded that illegal immigrants be deported at the earliest. The petitioners have also contended that as a result of this immigration, the traditional demographics of the state has changed, reducing its erstwhile ethnic majority population of the Borok tribals to a minority.

The petitioners have also sought fencing of the Tripura-Bangladesh border to prevent further influx of illegal immigrants.

—India Legal Bureau