Legitimacy of committee to check Justice Sen's report

KOLKATA: While the state government has set up a three member fact verification committee on Saturday to check facts of the report submitted by Justice Shyamal Kumar Sen's, the legitimacy of such committee is being questioned by a section of the Terrai and Dooars people.
Moreover, both the state government and GJM had signed an agreement on March 23 and had agreed to accept the report of Sen's committee.An official said, "There were Bengal government representatives in the committee including home secretary Basudeb Banerjee, who is also the secretary of hill affairs. But during the final meeting of the committee in May, none objected to the committee including GJM.""
GJM now wants scrapping the report of Justice Sen. They are unhappy as the committee suggested inclusion of only five moujas in Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). This is being seen as an attempt by the state government to pacify GJM, as they initially had demanded 398 moujas. GJM has also threatened to start agitation.
Justice Sen's report stated, that additional areas of Siliguri, Terrai and Dooars on the basis of compactness cannot be done. It had considered moujas based on Nepali population and for that mouja level data for the year 2001, received from the office of Census registrar general was used. The report said that 149 moujas in eastern side of Jalpaiguri district adjoining Bhutan is in no way connected with DGHC/GTA, though there are some areas with Nepali population over 50%. These moujas do not fulfil the criteria of contiguity, so they were not included.
Justice Sen's committee was set up by the Bengal government after the tripartite agreement between the Centre, state and GJM to demarcate territorial jurisdiction of GTA in July 2011.
Dr Mukunda Majumdar, president of Bangla-O-Bangla Bhasa Bachao Committee said that it is illegal to set up a committee to verify facts submitted by Justice Sen's committee. Did the state government take approval of the Centre to form this fact verification committee, as Centre was a party of the tripartite agreement. Without Centre's approval this committee has no legal validity, Majumdar said. Moreover he questioned how can a committee headed by a secretary verify facts of a committee headed by a retired high court judge.The decision is illogical. It is just for buying time. Majumdar said that they will hold 72 hours bandh in North Bengal from July 18 to July 20 to demand cancellation of GTA.
Even Birsa Tirkey, state president of Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Bikash Parishad said that there was no need for setting up this new committee. He demanded that in 2006, 18 moujas with a tribal majority were handed over to Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Commission, so these 18 moujas should be taken out of the GTA area.
Udai Kumai a civil society leader of the Hills who met the CM on Saturday and discussed about development said that as GJM is unhappy with Sen's report, so for amicably settling the issue a new committee had been formed.
An official said, Justice Sen's committee submitted its report based on guidelines set up by the state government. It decided on compactness, contiguity, homogeneity, ground level situation and other relevant factors while including moujas into GTA. He said, There is little room for the new committee to verify as Justice Sen's committee acted on the basis of data supplied by the Census registrar general. However, Justice Sen refused to comment on the issue.