New Delhi, Dec. 16: The Supreme Court today rejected an application by the Election Commission seeking additional polling booths for the 2003 Nagaland Assembly elections in areas disputed by Assam.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice G.B. Pattanaik and Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, directed that polling stations put up in areas for the 1991 Assembly elections should only be re-established for the coming polls.
Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland have longstanding boundary disputes. The three states have filed original suits in this regard in the apex court. In today?s hearing, the three states agreed to have a boundary dispute tribunal.
Assam has been claiming certain territory from Nagaland, while Nagaland argues that the ?Naga-dominated? territories in Assam belong to it.
The bench directed that the states should file within a week an affidavit establishing their intention to agree for a tribunal. It posted the case for further hearings after four weeks.
Only five days are left for the ceasefire between the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) and the Centre to expire.
The meeting, chaired by chief minister Tarun Gogoi, however, decided to appeal to the Bodo militant outfit to extend the ceasefire.
Minister for welfare of plains tribes and a member of the Cabinet sub-committee on BTC, Bharat Narah, told newspersons after the meeting that the political parties have sought details of the draft amendments to the Sixth Schedule proposed by the government for protection of the rights of non-Bodos.
The parties have also sought a list of the contentious 93 villages demanded by the BLT for inclusion in the proposed territory with details about population pattern in each of the villages, in addition to the 3,070 villages already cleared by a previous all-party meeting.
?The government agreed to the proposals as it wanted to take all political parties into confidence in the matter of creation of the BTC. We will give them the details in a couple of days,? the minister said.
Later tonight, the state Cabinet decided to seek the opinion of Opposition parties on the BTC issue by January 10.
The Cabinet also approved the proposal of the Cabinet sub-committee on the BTC to provide details of draft amendments to the Sixth Schedule suggested by the government, to the political parties as decided at the all-party meeting.
Several Cabinet ministers, while taking part in the discussion on the agenda, underlined the need for expediting the creation of the BTC, sources said.
Narah, however, said since the parties would take some time to discuss them in their respective fora, the formation of the BTC is likely to be delayed till January. The government had called today?s meeting with the hope of arriving at a consensus over the BLT?s demand for including the additional villages.
Though the BLT had maintained that it has no objection to amendments in the Sixth Schedule for the protection of non-Bodos in the BTC, Narah said during the last round of tripartite talks in Delhi on December 5, the outfit had demanded that the word ?non-tribal? be replaced by ?general? in the draft proposal. This would call for reservation of 10 of the 40 seats of the proposed council for ?non-tribals,? he said.
The government has turned down the BLT?s demand as it felt that in such a situation, the reservation for non-Bodos would carry no meaning as Bodos would also be able to contest those 10 seats if the reservation is made for ?general? and not specified for ?non-tribals?.
Narah, while referring to the anti-BTC movement, said the proposed amendments would only guarantee legal protection of the rights of non-Bodos over land.