Maharashtra gets 4 weeks to amend lawsuit

MUMBAI: The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Maharashtra government to include additional grounds in its lawsuit over the boundary dispute with Karnataka filed in 2004, challenging the ceding of pre-dominantly Marathi-speaking areas to its neighbour.

A bench of Justices J M Panchal and A K Patnaik granted four weeks to Maharashtra to amend its suit filed on March 29, 2004, in which it had challenged the inclusion of 865 Marathi-speaking villages in four districts of Belgaum, Karwar, Gulbarga and Bidar to Karnataka. The Court said Karnataka government will have to file its response within eight weeks after the amended suit is filed.

Advocates Harish Salve and Vinod Bobde, appearing for Maharashtra, submitted that some basic and settled principles like wishes of the people and linguistic criteria were not followed when these districts were ceded to Karnataka. In the application filed through its advocate Shivaji Jadhav, Maharashtra submitted that all theses factors were considered for demarcation of boundary between Tamil Nadu and Andhra, Punjab and Haryana, Maharashtra and Gujarat, etc.