GUWAHATI A court in Guwahati has summoned Prateek Hajela, the former Coordinator of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), to appear before it on November 17.
The court of the Additional District and Sessions Judge of Kamrup (Metropolitan) district also summoned the managing director of Wipro Ltd. and the proprietor of an Assam-based information technology firm based on a criminal revision petition filed by film-maker and businessman Luit Kumar Barman.
“...You are hereby asked to appear before this court on 17th November 2023 at 10.30 a.m. to file objections if any. On your failure to appear before the court the case will be heard ex parte by law,” the court said in its order to Mr. Hajela, a 1995-batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre who was allowed to go for voluntary retirement on August 1.
The Supreme Court, which monitored the NRC updating exercise in Assam, transferred him to Madhya Pradesh in 2019 as his life was deemed to be under threat over the NRC issue.
Mr. Barman filed a criminal revision petition against Mr. Hajela for allegedly misusing ₹155 crore while updating the NRC, whose complete draft published in August 2019 had left 19.06 lakh out of 3.3 crore applicants.
The court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Kamrup Metropolitan had registered Mr. Barman’s case against Mr. Hajela and the two others on April 12. The court dismissed the case on May 22 and asked the petitioner to approach a higher court.
