Written by: Kanchan Chakraborty
2 min readKolkataJun 15, 2012 04:01 AM IST
First published on: Jun 15, 2012 at 04:01 AM IST
Subash Ghising,president of Gorkha National Liberation Front and former chairman of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC),today filed an application in the Calcutta High Court urging it to declare the Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA) Act unconstitutional.
Ghising urged the high court to stay the GTA Act and the actions already taken according to the act.
According to the petition,both DGHC Act 1988 and GTA Act 2011 were enacted for similar purposes but the DGHC Act cannot be repealed by the state legislature by introducing the GTA Act.
The petition stated that according to Article 243 of the Constitution,the entire nation would be covered by either municipality or panchayat. But according to Article 243M (3a) panchayats at the district level are not applicable to the Hill areas of Darjeeling,for which DGHC exists. Article 243ZC (2) also says that the state municipality would not affect the functioning of DGHC. The petition says that Articles 234M (3a) and 243ZC (2) specifically mention the status of DGHC,therefore rendering the Assembly unable to repeal the DGHC Act.
Advocate Sanjib Kumar Bakshi,counsel of Ghising,said GTA cannot come into force without amending the Constitution. The case will come up for hearing on Tuesday,he added.
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