Nagaland can’t omit 33% reservation for women in ULB, says NBA President

DIMAPUR — Even if the state government passes a new bill on the Nagaland Municipal Act, it cannot omit 33% reservation for women in the Urban Local Bodies election, said A Zhimomi, president of Nagaland Bar Association (NBA) on Wednesday.

Interacting with the media on the sidelines of a programme, Zhimomi said ‘municipality’ is a chapter in the Constitution of India, so the repealing the Nagaland Municipal Act 2001 by the state does not take away this chapter of the Constitution.

He was attending a seminar organised by NBA, commemorating the platinum jubilee of the Gauhati High Court at District Court Complex in Dimapur.

Zhimomi said the Supreme Court had already directed the state to conduct the municipal election with reservation for women as provided by the Constitution and it still stands. He said the state government does not have any authority to change the provisions of the Constitution, while claiming that legal representatives were consulted in the Cabinet meetings about the controversial Act.

On the claim of some civil society organisations about infringement of Naga customary law, he said most of the institutions in modern Nagaland are created by law.

Meanwhile, he opined that Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition (NLTP) Act should be lifted completely as it is a “farce and total failure”. He said that attempts have been made across the world to prohibit liquor but didn’t work, and in the case of Nagaland, “it did not work from day one”.

He also said that the state not having its own high court even after 60 years of statehood is a matter of shame, while pointing out the need to seriously work together to remove the roadblocks.

The NBA president also reminded the advocates about the importance of maintaining professional ethics and the need to introspect their achievements, success and failures.