Appointment of IPS Rupin as DGP; SC ask govt to issue orders
NEW DELHI: The Assam and Meghalaya governments on Friday challenged in the Supreme Court the orders of the Meghalaya High Court on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the Chief Ministers of the two states to resolve their border dispute. It was stopped.
A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala took cognizance of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s submissions that urgent hearing of the matter was required as the single and division bench of the High Court on inter-state operations. It has been stopped. The border agreement was signed last year.
“We will hear it. Please provide three copies of the petition,” the CJI said.
A single-judge bench of the Meghalaya High Court on December 9 ordered an interim stay on the construction of physical demarcation or boundary posts on land in connection with the Inter-State Boundary Agreement.
Later, a Division Bench of the High Court refused to interfere with the order of the Single Judge Bench, leading to an appeal in the Supreme Court.
Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma and his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma signed a memorandum of understanding in March, demarcating the border in at least six of the 12 disputed points that often cross the border. Tensions arise between the two states.
The agreement was signed by the Chief Ministers of Assam and Meghalaya on March 29 last year in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The agreement sought to resolve the long-standing dispute between the two states at six of the 12 points along the 884.9 km long border.
The border dispute between Assam and Meghalaya has been going on for 50 years. However, in recent times, efforts to solve it have accelerated.
Meghalaya was separated from Assam as a separate state in 1972, but the new state challenged the Assam Reorganization Act of 1971, leading to a dispute over 12 border points.
