An Assam-based NGO, whose 2009 petition in the Supreme Court led to the exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC), on Tuesday asked the government to seize the passport of bureaucrat Prateek Hajela to prevent him from flying abroad.
The Supreme Court had on October 18 ordered the transfer of Mr. Hajela, a 1995 batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre who was made State NRC Coordinator, to his home State Madhya Pradesh.
Seizing his passport was necessary as he was solely responsible for spending ₹1,600 crore on the NRC exercise without providing any audit on how much was spent where, especially to information technology firms including Wipro, the Assam Public Works said in a statement.
The NGO president, Aabhijit Sarma, said the NRC authority needed to be purged of all officials who enjoyed a good rapport with Mr. Hajela and replace them with more trustworthy people.
