The joint parliamentary committee (JPC) on Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, on Tuesday extended the date for receiving suggestions for amendments from its own members till November 27.

The committee was supposed to receive suggestions for amendments to the bill from its members on Tuesday and discuss the bill clause by clause to prepare its report.

A section of the committee members, however, did not submit suggestions, saying they did not receive any notification in this regard from the committee’s chairman Rajendra Agrawal.

A member of the committee told The Telegraph from New Delhi that it wanted to go ahead with its clause-by-clause discussion with whatever suggestions it had received from its members. But the members who did not receive the notice opposed it. After a two-hour meeting, the committee decided to extend the date. It is planning to submit its report to the Centre before the winter session of Parliament which will begin on December 11. It has decided on December 5 or 6 as a tentative date for submitting the report.

“We will sit again on November 27. Members who want to suggest amendments can submit those to the committee by November 27 and we will discuss them clause by clause,” Agrawal said after the meeting

Before the meeting, 70 organisations from Assam who have launched a joint movement against the bill mailed an “urgent letter” to the committee, stating their demand to remove the word “Bangladesh” from the bill and scrap the Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015 and the Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015.

A statement released by the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), one of the 70 organisations, said its adviser Akhil Gogoi had called up several members of the committee and requested them to take a stand in favour of Assam.

An AGP delegation, led by its president Atul Bora, on Tuesday met all members of the committee in New Delhi and appealed to them to take a stand in favour of scraping the bill. They staged a protest in front of the auditorium where the JPC meeting was held.

The other members of the delegation were AGP’s working president Keshab Mahanta, general secretaries Birendra Prasad Baishya and Ramendra Narayan Kalita and minister Phani Bhusan Choudhury.