New Delhi, Feb 5 (IANS): The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to relax the July 31 deadline for the publication of Assam's final National Register of Citizens (NRC) and disapproved the Centre's plea for putting the updation work on hold.

"The Ministry of Home Affairs is bent upon that NRC work is not carried out. The entire effort of the Ministry is to destroy this process. If you want NRC work to go on, there are 1,001 ways of doing it. The government is not co-operating," Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said.

His remark came after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal apprised the apex court of the Centre's stand that work on NRC updation should be put on hold till the completion of the Lok Sabha elections, to be announced by the Election Commission.

Brushing aside the Centre's request, the division bench, comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Nariman, asked the Election Commission to examine if it could hold the elections in the state by sparing 3,457 officers who would continue NRC updation work.