Grand council chiefs petition Delhi for constitutional rights

SHILLONG: The Grand Council of Chiefs, as a follow-up to the recent meeting on amendment to Sixth Schedule met Satyendra Garg, Joint Secretary, North East, Ministry of Home Affairs, in New Delhi, to submit a memorandum on the issue of the Instrument of Accession and Annexed Agreement (IOA&AA) of August 17, 1948.
After threadbare discussion on the issue of the IOA & AA and after seeing the documentary evidence presented as to how the matter has not been solved and the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) not responding since August 3, 2012, to the letters from the state government and the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Joint Secretary, North East, (MHA), sought opinion from the state government with regard to directives from National Commission for Schedule Tribes, NCST.
The suggestions from National Human Rights Commission were that even if the District Council does not respond, it is obligatory for the state government to inform the Centre about it’s opinion on the subject matter, as these directives had come from statutory constitutional bodies such as the NCST. In this regard, the Joint Secretary said a reminder would be sent again to the state government for a reply on the matter.
During the discussions, spokesperson, Federation of Khasi States John F. Kharshiing, informed the Joint Secretary, that the district councils in Meghalaya have purely become spring boards for aspiring politicians to become MLAs and almost all political parties have failed to admit the constitutional anomalies within the sixth schedule and the Constitution of India.