SHILLONG: THS Bonney, who is the KHNAM candidate for Shillong parliamentary seat, said on Friday the “sole authority” that can settle the border dispute between Meghalaya and Assam is Parliament.
Bonney, who is a retired IFS officer, told reporters that Article 3 of the Constitution “clearly spells out that Parliament is the sole authority to settle border dispute and therefore it is clearly the duty of the central government to solve this problem”.
Article 3 states Parliament may by law, form a new state by separation of territory from any state or by uniting two or more states or parts of states or by uniting any territory to a part of any state; increase or diminish the area of any state; or alter the boundaries of any state.
“Even the Supreme Court last year put the ball in the Centre’s court to implement report on demarcation of Andhra (Pradesh) and Karnataka boundary in the Obulapuram Mining Company case,” the KHNAM candidate said.
Bonney had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court in January with the Centre and the governments of Assam and Meghalaya as respondents.Before filing the PIL, he had written to Home Minister Rajnath Singh on October 15, 2018, and requested him to address the problems of the residents of border areas. But after no response, he searched for “relevant papers to file the PIL and our case was heard on February 24”, he informed.
The Supreme Court has issued notices to the Centre, the Assam and the Meghalaya governments based on the PIL. The matter will come up for hearing on April 26.
“The PIL was filed to solve this problem and remove all the festering sores causing unnecessary tension between the people of Assam and Meghalaya,” he said and added that despite several rounds of talks at the chief ministerial and chief secretary levels, the issue could not be resolved.
“I believe that once the issue is taken up by the highest court in the land, we will one day get everlasting peace on the border,” he said.
Bonney, who is also a social activist, wondered why the dispute still persists when people from both sides travel to each other’s states.
“As an IFS officer of Odisha Cadre, I worked in the Andhra Pradesh border for 10 years and was responsible for maintaining some part of the boundary between Odisha and Chhattisgarh for a few years but I have never heard of any boundary problems between the two states and citizens come and go from one state to another without any trouble,” he said.
