A two-judge bench of the High Court of HIGH COURT OF MEGHALAYA AT SHILLONG, on 18.02.2019 in Bernard N. Marak Vs. State of Meghalaya & ors (WP (C) No.36/2019) dismissed the petition.

The bench was headed by:-

·       CHIEF JUSTICE Mohammad Yaqoob Mir.

·       JUSTICE H.S. Thangkhiew

FACTS:

By this petition, petitioner declared Garo Hills District (Transfer of Land) Act, 1955 as void, ultra-vires, illegal and unconstitutional. Further he asked the court to command Garo Hills Autonomous District Council not to exercise power relating to transfer and settlement of land by issuance of Patta and further to nullify the Act of creation or reorganization of non hill mauza i.e. X, X-1 etc by the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) for want of such power under the provision of Sixth Schedule.

ISSUES:

·       Validity of Garo Hills District (Transfer of Land) Act, 1955.

·       Which of petitioner’s right guaranteed by the Constitution were getting infringed by the Garo Hills District (Transfer of Land) Act, 1955?

CONTENTIONS:

By petitioners:

·       Asked the respondent to show any rule/regulation or any customary precedent authorizing Smti. Enilla Ch. Marak to appoint the petitioner as Nokma when the petitioner admittedly was neither husband of Smti. Enilla Ch. Marak nor was anyway connected so as to get the status of Nokma.

·        Even otherwise being a citizen of India he was entitled to the rights and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution which could not be denied but his right were being infringed.

·       Act operates in a very harsh manner.

·       Act was void, ultra-vires, illegal and unconstitutional.

By respondents:

·       Asked the petitioner to show from the averments of his petition how any of his rights or privileges were getting violated.

·       Petitioner simply said in his petition that the Act operates harshly but could not show as to how his personal right and interest were getting jeopardized.

·       This petition was not worth to be entertained.

·       The petitioner had no locus.

OBSERVATIONS:

The court observed that:-

·       The petition should include all the claims and all the grounds on which such claims are being made for its maintenance in the court which was not fulfilled by the petitioner.

·       Petition should not be ambiguous in any way.

·       This petition had been filed with some design so as to take some benefits through the documents which were stated to haved been executed by Smti. Enilla Ch. Marak in favour of the petitioner.

·       Petition was not maintainable for want of locus because the petition highlighted that the petitioner claimed to have been appointed as Nokma/Headman of Tura Town area by Akhing Nokma of Danakgre Smti. Enilla Ch. Marak and otherwise also was entitled to all the rights and privileges as guaranteed by the Constitution of India and the laws framed there-under being a citizen of this country.

·       Dismissal of this petition for want of locus shall be without prejudice to his personal rights or otherwise for resorting to available, permissible and remedial measures.

HELD:

The court dismissed the writ petition but left it open to the petitioner to have recourse to such permissible legal measures as shall be otherwise available to him regarding the documents stated to have been executed in his favour by Smti. Enilla Ch. Marak.

For full judgement refer:

[embeddoc url=”http://lobis.nic.in/ddir/shb/MYM/judgement/18-02-2019/MYM18022019WP(C)0000362019.pdf” download=”all”]