Guwahati, Nov 24: The Assam government will, for the first time, place the findings of a non-government commission in the session of the state legislative Assembly.
The state Cabinet had on Sunday evening approved placing the Justice (Retd) T.U Mehta (Unofficial) Judicial Commission of Enquiry Report on the incidents related to the 1983 election violence, amid the Assam Agitation, before the Assam Legislative Assembly in the upcoming session.
The report was submitted by a three-member unofficial judicial commission, comprising T. U. Mehta, retired Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court; Ganesh Chandra Phukan, retired IAS officer and former secretary, finance department; and Rayhan Shah, retired professor of Cotton College.
Making the announcement, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the decision was taken in the wake of the demand of the All-Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which argued that the document should be made public so people can “get to know all sides”.
Sarma said the tabling of a report prepared by a non-government commission “will be a first” for the Assembly.
Notably, the Assam Cabinet has also approved the distribution of tablings of the 1983 Tewari Commission Report on the 1983 Nellie massacre, which probed the violence during that year’s phase of the Assam Agitation.
The Tiwari Commission, headed by Justice T.D Tiwari, was constituted by the Assam government led by then chief minister Hiteswar Saikia to investigate the massacre at Nellie in central Assam’s Nagaon district in 1983. The commission’s report was submitted to the government in 1984 but was never made public.
Both reports relate to the six-year-old Assam Agitation, which culminated in the 1985 Assam Accord but left unresolved tensions over undocumented migration.
Sarma said the Tewari Commission report, despite being commissioned by a Congress government, was “generally neutral and compiled through many hardships”.
The Cabinet meeting also cleared around several Bills for introduction in the upcoming session. The key proposals include land allotments for tea garden workers, regulation of fees in minority-run private educational institutions, and enabling legislation for a philanthropic university backed by the Azim Premji Foundation.
Besides, the State Cabinet also approved the introduction of the Karbi Welfare Autonomous Council Bill, 2025, before the Assam Legislative Assembly to create a Karbi Welfare Autonomous Council for Karbi people living outside the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) area.
