HC rap for Centre, state over Hill pact

HC rap for Centre, state over Hill pact

17 September 2011

tirthankar mitra 
KOLKATA, 17 SEPT: Calcutta High Court criticised the state government and Union government on Friday, for failing to address issues relating to the impact of an alleged influx of people from Nepal on demographics in India. The criticism comes long after the ink has dried on the memorandum of agreement (MoA) between the state, Union Government and the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) for the formation of Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA).
“The matter is extremely serious in nature. The respondents are taking the matter very lightly,” the Division Bench of Chief Justice Mr Justice JN Patel and Mr Justice Asim Roy said during a public interest litigation (PIL) hearing on the misutilisation of Articles six and seven of the Indo-Nepal Treaty of 1950, which some say is leading to an influx of people of Nepali origin to India.  
The provisions in these Articles confer exclusive and restricted national treatment to the treaty beneficiaries in India and Nepal.
According to the PIL, which was submitted by Mr Kallol Guha Thakurta and  moved by Jan Chetna, a Siliguri-based voluntary organisation, an increasing number of people of Nepali origin are coming to India and enrolling themselves on the voters’ list in many constituencies in Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong and parts of the Dooars in West Bengal,
Resentment among people of non-Nepali origin about the inclusion of certain areas in the GTA's jurisdiction was manifested in a bandh in Siliguri. The bandh was part of a two-day agitation that took place on the day the MoA was signed. Several organisations are opposed to the GJMM’s demand for inclusion of eight wards from the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and 196 moujas each from the Terai and the Dooars in the GTA's jurisdiction. 
The Election Commission has failed to prevent this illegal inclusion, it was submitted. It is violating Article 326 of the Constitution which deals with adult suffrage. Under the Indo-Nepal-Great Britain tripartite agreement in 1947, soldiers who are subjects of Nepal recruited in certain Gorkha regiments are debarred from possessing voting rights in India, it had been submitted. Their progeny is also not given this right. 
Besides entering India from Nepal, a sizeable number of persons of Nepali origin are going to Bhutan and then coming over to India, it was submitted. As there is no extradition treaty between India and Bhutan, these people are not registered as foreigners. It was further submitted that there is rising apprehension that north Bengal and north east India will at a point of time be swamped by them. 
The issue of the change of demographic pattern is a significant factor in the inclusion of area under Gorkha Terriotorial Administration's (GTA) jurisdiction. Incidentally, the director of census operations is a member of the high-powered committee which had been formed to look into the issue of identification of GTA's area from Siliguri, Terai and Dooars, keeping in mind      the “compactness, contiguity, homogeneity and ground-level situations.”