SHILLONG: The KHADC chief executive member, HS Shylla, introduced a bill on inner line permit on the first day of the council’s special session on Thursday.
The Khasi Hills Autonomous District (Inner Line as adopted from the Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873) Regulation Bill, 2018, seeks to regulate peace, protection, conservation and constitutional governance of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District.
A resolution was also adopted unanimously to notify the provisions of the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, as adapted and modified to the needs of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District.
Shylla moved the resolution to urge the governor to apply the provisions of the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation as adopted and modified in the form of the inner line permit bill.
Moving the resolution, the CEM said, “The situation in the Khasi Hills Autonomous District has developed into an alarming one out of the implementation of the National Register of Citizens in Assam resulting in mass migration of illegal immigrants.”
He added that the unchecked migration was also posing a grave danger for the Khasi tribe.
The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, being one of the regulations included in the United Khasi-Jaintia Hills District (Application of Laws), Regulation, 1952, which is in force in the Khasi Hills Autonomous District, has now been adopted in the form of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District (The Inner Line) Regulation, 2018, the KHADC chief pointed out.
Section 3 of the bill states that “it will be legal for the Executive Committee to prescribe from time to time to alter by notification in the Meghalaya Gazette, a line to be called ‘the Inner Line’ in the Khasi Hills Autonomous District”.
The committee may, by notification in the Meghalaya Gazette, prohibit “all citizens of India or any class of such citizens or any persons residing in or passing through such extraneous districts from going beyond such line without a pass under the hand and seal of the CEM of such district or of such other officer as he may authorise to grant such pass; and the EC of the KHADC may, from time to time, cancel or vary such prohibition”.
Section 4 provides for “penalty for anyone who goes beyond such line without a pass, shall be liable, on conviction before a magistrate or court, to imprisonment of either description which may extend to one year, or to a fine not exceeding Rs 1,000 or both”.
Section 7 states that “the CEM may authorise a Syiem, a Lyngdoh, a Sirdar or a Wahadadar, the power of apprehension and arrest of any person found in violation of this regulation”.
