Bhubaneswar: To present its stand in the Supreme Court on Kotia issue, the state government has asked the Koraput District Collector to prepare all documents related to three disputed villages of the gram panchayat.
The Revenue and Disaster Management department has asked the Collector to furnish all relevant land records of the bordering villages including conduct of Parliament and Assembly elections and development programmes of the state government.
The state government will have a virtual meeting with the Advocate on Record (AOR) Sibo Sankar Mishra of the apex court Wednesday. The state government desired that optimum efforts should be made to defend the interest of the state. The next hearing on the case is scheduled for February 19.
Meanwhile, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik said the border dispute emerged due to administrative negligence.
“The issue could have been resolved if efforts were made at the grassroots level much earlier. Just because I am in the ruling party, I am not the person to blindly say all things happening in the party are right,” Patnaik said.
“I accept negligence on the part of the administrative machinery. However, even though it is late, the government is braced to fight for the issue,” the MLA said.
Though the border row is a long pending issue, it is not new in India, he said, adding, many states have border disputes with their neighbouring states.
“Due to inefficiency in state leadership, the neighboring state conducted election in Odisha,” said Congress leader Narasingha Mishra. He thanked Patnaik for accepting the administrative failure on the issue. He (Patnaik) should raise the issue in the Assembly, the Congress leader added.
Earlier, the Odisha government had moved the Supreme Court seeking contempt of court proceedings against Andhra Pradesh, mentioning in its petition that the apex court had earlier ordered to maintain status quo in the disputed area of Kotia.
PNN
