Supreme Court appointed mediators on Assam-Nagaland border, Sriram Panchu and Niranjan Bhatt are due to submit their finding report to the Supreme Court by September 13 next, which is likely to decide the mode of resolution of the vexed border dispute between the two neighbouring states.
Based on the report of the mediators, the Supreme Court would now decide whether to allow the mediation to continue in its quest to resolve the decades old border dispute between the two neighbouring states outside the court through mediations.
To settle the border row with between Assam and Nagaland for once and all, the Supreme Court August 20, 2010 directed the decades old Assam Nagaland border issue to be resolved through mediation.
With regard to this, the apex court appointed “two of the foremost experts in mediation in India”, Madras High Court senior advocate Sriram Panchoo and Gujarat High Court senior advocate Niranjan Bhat, as co-mediators who would be assisted by two others.
The two mediators assisted by two others had so far visited on spot the disputed border areas and also had series of meeting with civil societies and also chief ministers of the two neighbouring states, who both expressed willingness to resolve the dispute outside the court through mediations.
Prior to 1957, Naga Hills was a District in the State of Assam. On December 1, 1963, the State of Nagaland was formally inaugurated, thereby making it the 16th State in the Union of India.
However, with the subsequent unresolved border dispute, the Supreme Court appointed Justice S.N. Variava, a former Judge of the Supreme Court as the chairperson of the local commission on September 25, 2006.
Justice Variava was to be assisted by Kamal Naidu, Retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Andhra Pradesh, and S.P. Goel, Additional Surveyor General of India, as Members.
The mandate of the local commission was to “identify the boundaries between the States of Nagaland, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh”.
However, Justice Variava later expressed his inability to continue as the Commissioner. Hence, Retired Justice Tarun Chatterjee of the Supreme Court of India was appointed in his placed on January 20, 2010.
Again on August 20, 2010, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court through order stressed the need to make an attempt to resolve the dispute between the State of Assam and State of Nagaland by mediation.
It may be mentioned that Assam government had earlier filed an original suit with the Supreme Court against the Union of India in 1988 for identification of the boundaries between the states of Nagaland, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
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