Morung Express News
Dimapur | September 15
Despite the Supreme Court order asking the Nagaland government to file affidavit within three weeks time, the State government is sticking to its gun, insisting that the various political agreements like the 9-point and 16-point agreement signed between the Government of India and the Nagas should be taken into consideration if the boundary dispute has to be resolved once and for all.
Reacting to the Supreme Court order, State Commissioner TN Mannen disagreed to the idea of resolving the dispute through legal means, maintaining that a court settlement would only favour one State and hurt the other instead of enabling long term solutions.
The bone of contention in resolving the boundary dispute between the two sister states is that, while Assam wants proper demarcation of the 1925 boundary line, Nagaland wants the Government of India to implement the promises of the political agreements while resolving the dispute.
But Assam doesn’t want to take into consideration this historical factor, said Mannen, adding that political decision would be required if the two states has to resolve the dispute. Mannen added that in 1988, the Shastri Commission suggested long-term and short-term solutions and was in the process of going into the nitty-gritty of the dispute. However, Assam went to court without taking into considerations the suggestions put forth by the commission, due to which the unresolved issue has prolonged till today, Mannen regretted.
He said that if boundary dispute between the two states has to be resolved once and for all, every aspect including the legal, historical, political and other relevant areas should be taken into account.
The Nagaland government also insisted that the Boundary Commission should be constituted instead of the local commission, which was favoured by Assam, as the latter would have adverse impact for the Nagaland side.
“The best thing would be an out of court settlement by forming boundary commission and taking all relevant factors into consideration,” Mannen reiterated.
On a number of occasions, Nagaland Government has objected to the formation of Local Commission as proposed by the Supreme Court, stating that decision of such commission would only go in favour of Assam State.
The Commissioner further alleged that encroachment by Assam on Nagaland side is 95%, while the encroachment by Nagaland side is only about 5%.
“Assam is fast in propaganda war and they have rich resource to do this”, the Commissioner added.
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