Untaba demands amendment in State of Nagaland Act, 1962

Dimapur, Aug. 1 (EMN): United Naga Tribes Association on Border Areas (Untaba) has demanded amendment in sections three and four of the State of Nagaland Act, 1962 (The 13th Amendment Act) to ‘effect re-transfer of reserve forests and amalgamate all the Naga territories back to the state of Nagaland.’

In a statement on Sunday, Untaba requested the state government to adopt the resolution in the house of Nagaland Legislative Assembly demanding the government of India to introduce and enact necessary amendment ‘so that all the past wrongs can be righted for the Naga people in particular and for greater posterity of all’.

“It has been almost 60 years since the establishment of ‘Nagaland’ as the sixteenth state under the Union of India through an Act of Parliament- The Thirteenth Amendment Act, 1962. However, the inter-State boundary between Assam and Nagaland has never been surveyed or demarcated clearly as disposed by the Surveyor General of India in the honorable Supreme Court in the course of litigation process on the ‘Civil Suit No. 2 of 1988’. Owing to these glaring facts, there has been intermittent clashes, fights and even war between the people of two States since the Statehood of Nagaland in 1963 over the land.

“The First Schedule of the Constitution of India, in entry No. 16 with reference to the State of Nagaland, refers to the territories specified in Sub-Section (1) of Section 3 of the State of Nagaland Act, 1962.

The above mentioned Sub-Section (1) of Section 3 with reference to the formation of the State of Nagaland provides that: As from the appointed day, there shall be formed a new State to be known as the State of Nagaland comprising the territories which immediately before that day were comprised in the Naga Hills Tuensang Area and thereupon the said territories shall cease to form part of the State of Assam.

“Section 2(e) of the State of Nagaland Act, 1962 Act provides that: Naga Hills Tuensang Area means the Naga Hills Tuensang Area specified in Part B of the Table appended to paragraph 20 of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution, comprising the areas which at the commencement of the Constitution were known as the Naga Hills District and the Naga Tribal Area.

“ Points No. 1, 12 and 13 of the 16 Points Agreement of July 1960, between the Naga Peoples Convention and the Government of India for the establishment of a separate Naga State provides that:

“The Name: The territories that were hitherto known as the Naga Hills Tuensang Area under the Naga Hills Tuensang Area Act, 1957, and any other Naga areas, which may hereafter come under it shall form a State within the Indian Union and be hereafter known as the Nagaland.; Re-transfer of Reserve Forests: All the Reserved Forests and other Naga areas that were transferred out of Naga area will be returned to Nagaland with a clearly defined boundary under the present settlement;

Consolidation of Contiguous Naga Areas: The other Naga tribes inhabiting the areas contiguous to the present Nagaland be allowed to join Nagaland if they so desire.

“The State of Nagaland was created of the territories under the NHTA Act without the inclusion of any other Naga areas as claimed in Point No. 1.

“With reference to Points No. 12 and 13, during the deliberation on the 16 Points Agreement, as the Central Government expressed its inability to decide nor accept them at that moment, on the insistence and wishes of the Naga delegates, it was placed on record representing as follows:

“The facts that the Naga delegates were referred to Articles 3 and 4 of the Constitution of India for transfer of areas from one State to another, namely the Reserved Forests and the contiguous areas inhabited by the Nagas, and that it was not possible for the Government of India to make any commitment in this regard at that stage immediately prior to the formation of the State of Nagaland”, the Government of India remains obligated to the wishes of the Naga people to give effect to the relevant Points No. 1, 12 and 13 of the 16 Points Agreement”, read the statement.

It said that the Government of India could therefore be requested to act ‘as per its own commitment’ and enact necessary amendment by invoking the Constitutional provisions of Article 3 and 4 of the Constitution of India to fulfil the mentioned clauses of agreements in letter and spirit.