Supreme Court to hear plea of Meghalaya against High Court order on settling of its border dispute with Assam

The Supreme Court said it will hear a petition from the Meghalaya government in July contesting the high court's order to freeze the MoU agreed by the chief ministers of Assam and Meghalaya to settle their long-running boundary dispute.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices P S Narasiha and J B Pardiwala said the plea, which should have been listed on a non-miscellaneous day, has wrongly been listed on Monday by the apex court registry. “We will keep this in July,” the bench said. 

The state administration has appealed the Meghalaya High Court's December 8, 2022 judgement halting the Agreement reached by the chief ministers of Assam and Meghalaya to settle the border issue.

Previously, in opposing the high court's judgement, the state administration stated that problems relating to the changing of boundaries or the exchange of regions between two states are solely political in nature and fall under the "sole jurisdiction" of the Executive.

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In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the Meghalaya government claimed that the high court failed to recognise that an interim order cannot be issued simply on the petitioner's request when the subject involves the exercise of sovereign powers such as the delineation of state boundaries.

"It is claimed that any issues pertaining to the changing of boundaries between two states or issues relating to the exchange of regions between two states are entirely political matters relating to the political administration of the nation and its federal component entities."

"It is submitted that the said exercise has no shade of judicial adjudication and falls squarely within the sole domain of the Executive. It is submitted that any interference or staying of such MoU amounts to a complete breach of the separation of powers enshrined under the Constitution of India," the plea submitted. 

According to the petition, the MoU signed by the two states is a sovereign act between the states to demarcate the limits in a fair and transparent manner that cannot be tampered with by way of a writ petition, let alone by passing an interim injunction. Furthermore, the scope of court review in such cases is exceedingly limited, according to the report.

"In passing the impugned judgment the division bench failed to appreciate that the MoU dated March 29, 2022, signed between the State of Assam and the State of Meghalaya in the presence of Union Minister of Home Affairs settling outstanding boundary disputes in respect of six areas. "Clause 19 of MoU required the Survey of India to demarcate the boundary of the State of Assam and the State of Meghalaya in respect of six areas in presence of representatives of both the states. 

"The interim judgement issued by the single judge has effectively stalled the aforementioned process of delineation of the boundary between the two states and derailed the resolution of a long-pending border dispute between the states of Assam and Meghalaya," the appeal said.

The state administration argued that the high court should have intervened in the single judge's temporary decision since it was issued in a mechanical way without regard for the judicially defined rules for granting interim relief.

After the inter-state border deal, a single judge bench of the Meghalaya High Court issued an interim stay on physical delineation or the placement of boundary markers on the ground on December 8.

Eventually, a division bench of the Supreme Court refused to overturn the single-judge bench's decision, causing the petitioners to seek an appeal with the Supreme Court.

Conrad K Sangma, Chief Minister of Meghalaya, and his Assam colleague, Himanta Biswa Sarma, signed an Agreement in March last year to demarcate the boundary in at least six of the 12 contentious places that frequently sparked tensions between the two states.

The agreement was signed by the chief ministers of Assam and Meghalaya on March 29, last year, in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The agreement intended to settle the long-running disagreement in six of the twelve locations along the two states' 884.9-kilometre border.

Over the past 50 years, Assam and Meghalaya have had a border dispute. Nonetheless, attempts to remedy it have recently accelerated.

Meghalaya was formed as a distinct state from Assam in 1972, however, the new state contested the Assam Reorganisation Act of 1971, resulting in a dispute over 12 border sites.