“Maharashtra can amend border row suit”

The Supreme Court has permitted the Maharashtra government to amend its suit challenging the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, and the Bombay Reorganisation Act, 1960.

The suit was filed in 2004 for transfer of certain Marathi-speaking areas of Belgaum to Maharashtra. Even as the matter was pending, it filed an application in 2009 for an amendment arguing that the disputed Marathi-speaking areas of the pre-Independence province of Bombay should have continued with the erstwhile State of Bombay, and then with Maharashtra, on the basis of the principle of reorganisation the States Reorganisation Commission adopted.

On Monday, after hearing senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for Maharashtra, the Bench of Justices J.M. Panchal and A.K. Patnaik permitted amendment to the suit in four weeks, and granted Karnataka and the Centre eight weeks for Karnataka for filing written submissions. The matter would be listed after 12 weeks.

Senior counsel Fali Nariman appeared for Karnataka.

Maharashtra, in its application, blamed the Centre for bifurcating the two States without adopting a scientific and rational approach.

“The reluctance of the Union to perform its constitutional duty has not only caused discrimination to the plaintiff but also resulted in a gross violation of the rights of the inhabitants of the disputed area under Article 21. The Centre denied Maharashtra's allegation of step-motherly treatment to Marathi-speaking people and said the language of the people was one of the criteria for inclusion of any area — be it a village, taluk or municipal area — in a State. “It is not correct to say that certain areas were wrongly merged in Karnataka.”

Further the transfer of certain areas to the then Mysore [now Karnataka] was neither arbitrary nor wrong.”