Al Ngullie
Dimapur | September 12
The chief secretaries of Assam and Nagaland are expected to meet on September 18 in Delhi the two mediators appointed by the Supreme Court of India to resolve the border dispute between the two North East states. The September 18 sitting is understood to be the first of a 3-meeting series after the Supreme Court opined in August to use ‘mediation’ and not adjudication to resolve border disputes.
Also, a bench of the Supreme Court is reported to have sought examination of the preliminary reports of the two mediators from a 3-sittings series, the first meeting already scheduled September 18. The tone of the feasibility report from the mediators will decide the fate of the Assam-Nagaland border dispute whether or not the issue could be resolved through mediation and not by adjudication.
The preliminary report of the mediators is to be set before the Supreme Court bench in the first week of December, around the 6th. A hearing will be held a week after the report is set. The second “mediation meeting” is to be held within four weeks of the first one, the court has directed. The third of the ‘mediation meetings’ is to be held within four weeks of the second meeting.
In August this year, the Supreme Court had appointed two ‘co-mediators’ to resolving the border row between Assam and Nagaland states, the case for which has been pending in the court for about 22 years. The Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Markandeya Katju and Justice TS Thakur appointed senior advocates Sriram Panchoo of Madras High Court and Niranjan Bhatt of Gujarat High Court to mediate between Assam and Nagaland. The court had reportedly said a representative of the Union Home Ministry and the chief secretaries of the Assam and Nagaland should be associated with the process of mediation.
If the mediators’ preliminary report is found “positive,” the Supreme Court will extend the tenure of the mediators. Meaning, the Supreme Court’s attempt to resolve the Assam-Nagaland border dispute through mediation – as opposed to using adjudication to resolve inter-border cases – is expected to trigger fresh resolution-oriented initiatives to the about 22 years old dispute that has kept the two neighboring states constantly at loggerheads.
For this purpose the mediators and chief secretaries of the two states are informed to have scheduled a meeting in Delhi at a venue yet to be informed but stated to be fixed by the Union Home Ministry. Chief Secretary of Nagaland Lalthara did not take calls made to him repeatedly by this daily since Friday evening.
Earlier in August, the Supreme Court had observed that “adjudication cannot resolve such differences that have become a routine affair” and had asked the two states to ‘sit across the table.’
The Supreme Court had stated the difficulties involved in adjudicating border disputes such as the one between Assam and Nagaland. “This matter is pending since 1988 and would go on for the next 25 years when you and I won’t be around,” the bench had stated.
