New Delhi: The Supreme Court asked Andhra Pradesh to file its response on a plea filed by Odisha seeking contempt action against senior officials of the southern state, for notifying panchayat polls in three ‘disputed area’ villages of the petitioner state. A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Aniruddha Bose said that it will not pass any order Friday. Before passing the order it would like to consider the reply of Andhra Pradesh, February 19. During the brief hearing, senior advocate Vikas Singh and advocate Sibu Shankar Mishra, appearing for Odisha, said Andhra Pradesh is conducting the panchayat elections in the disputed area controlled by it.
The bench asked Advocate Mahfooz A Nazki, standing counsel for Andhra Pradesh, to file the state’s response on the plea of Odisha.
The bench granted liberty to the counsel for Odisha to serve an advance copy of the petition to the counsel for Andhra and listed the matter for further hearing next Friday.
More than five decades since the first status quo order on the territorial jurisdiction dispute with AP over 21 villages, Odisha has moved the top court once again seeking contempt action against officials of the southern state for notifying panchayat polls in three of its villages. The Naveen Patnaik government has said the notification amounts to invading Odisha’s territory.
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The dispute over territorial jurisdiction over 21 villages popularly called as ‘Kotia Group of villages’ first reached the top court in 1968 when Odisha on the basis of three notifications — issued December 1, 1920, October 8, 1923 and October 15, 1927 — claimed that Andhra Pradesh had trespassed into its well-defined territory.
During the pendency of the suit filed by Odisha, the top court had on December 2, 1968 directed both the states to maintain status quo till the disposal of the suit and said, ‘there shall be no further ingress or egress on the territories in dispute, on the part of either party’.
The suit filed by Odisha under Article 131 (the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction over any dispute arising between the states or between the centre and state) of the Constitution was finally dismissed on technical grounds by the top court March 30, 2006, and with the consent of both the states it directed that status quo be maintained till the dispute is resolved.
Now, the Odisha government has sought contempt action against AP’s three senior officials – Mude Hari Jawaharlal (contemnor-1), collector of Vizinagaram district; Adityanath Das, Chief Secretary of AP (contemnor-2), and N Ramesh Kumar, State Election Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh (contemnor-3).
“Apparently, the said notification issued by contemnor number 1 in unison with contemnor number 2 and 3 is to invade into the territory of the petitioner state at the cost of wilful violation of order of this court. Therefore the contemnors are to be called upon to explain as to why contempt proceedings shall not be drawn against them and appropriate punishment shall not be awarded to them,” the plea said.
The Odisha government has sought notice to the contemnors as to why contempt proceedings not be initiated against them for wilfully violating orders dated December 2, 1968 and March 30, 2006 passed by the court in the original suit.
“The petitioner state of Odisha is invoking the contempt jurisdiction of this court against the alleged contemnor for having wilfully and deliberately violated the order dated December 2, 1968 and the judgement dated March 30, 2006 passed by this court in original suit filed by State of Orissa and State of Andhra Pradesh,” the plea said.
The Odisha government further claimed that administratively and otherwise, it has been in control of these villages but of late ‘clandestinely the contemnors have entered into the impugned act of contempt by which the order of this court has been violated’.
