Village headmen and NGOs move HC against delimitation bill

Over one hundred village headmen along with several NGOs opposing implementation of the proposed new delimitation bill passed by the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council, today submitted a petition with the Meghalaya High Court seeking its immediate intervention in the matter.
Around 130 headmen of several villages from East Jaintia Hills and West Jaintia Hills districts and seven NGOs filed a writ petition against the state government and the JHADC in the court of the Chief Justice.
The chiefs and NGOs in their petition said "...The present manner of delimitation has been done in a 'gerrymandering' way, to fit the whims and fancy of individuals who are in the political majority whereby the whole process of delimitation of the constituencies for the election to the JHADC has been usurped by a collected few and power of the delimitation has been abused."

It may be recalled that the executive committee of the JHADC, had on September 30, constituted the Delimitation Committee consisting of four members - a chairman, two members and one member secretary.
"The delimitation process seemed to proceed in an one track pre-decided manner sidelining all or any of the objections, propositions, suggestions from any quarter," the petition said.
It further stated that the dissident voices of the people during the public hearing conducted on October 23 and 24 last year, were a farce.

"The public were not given a fair chance of being heard and the draft delimitation bill was simply held in the air and shown to the people. The whole objective of public hearing was trampled upon," it said.

The draft delimitation of constituencies should have been tabled before the floor of the Council, "however, this was never done. In fact, further illegalities were perpetuated by the JHADC bulldozing all procedures and conduct of business of the Council," they said.
"Our writ petition has been admitted by the High Court and it has fixed January 14 as the date of hearing," Baitlang Pohsngap, president of the Jaintia People's Movement Forum (JPMF), which is one of the seven NGOs, told reporters here.
Apart from JPMF, the other NGOs included Jaintia Youth Federation (JYF), Jaintia Students Union (JSU), All Jaintia Youth Welfare Organisation (AJYWO), Federation of Khasi-Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP), Hynniewtrep National People Front (HNPF) and Hynniewtrep Achik National Movement (HANM).