The Supreme Court on Tuesday took the Centre to task for fixing a three-year timeline to complete the fencing of the international border with Bangladesh running along the State of Assam.
Hoping that the Centre would have stuck to its earlier deadline of completing the fencing by this year-end, the Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohington F Nariman expressed “displeasure” on the Government playing around with the Court and sought reasons for the delay within a week.
An affidavit filed by the Centre was taken up by the Court during the hearing on a bunch of PIls seeking border fencing as one of the solutions to curb illegal immigrants from crossing over the border. The Court asked the Centre why the fencing on a stretch of 13.38 kilometres required 18 months to complete. “This affidavit is utterly vague. We get an impression that you are playing around with the Court.”
The Court went on to read the affidavit further which dealt with fencing along the international border situated over the river. For physical infrastructure to be installed, the affidavit suggested a timeframe of three years, expected to complete by 2020. “This amounts to filibustering. We are extremely unhappy with this kind of response, and that too after monitoring the case for
five years.”
The Centre informed the Court that on the plain stretches, there arose protocol issues to be resolved with the Bangladesh forces posted on the border. While on the river stretches, the Centre awaited hydrological data to be gathered after studying the geographic terrain and conditions. The bench scoffed at such a response of the Centre on a crucial issue of border fencing meant to protect and guard our borders.
"We feel this is filibustering on your part. We thought to move forward and not sidestepping and move backward. This is regrettable. We expect the concerned authorities to give us adequate justification and reasons for the above delay," said the bench.
The Indo-Bangla border runs through several states of which Assam shares a stretch of 267.3 kilometre. Of this, 223 kilometre is land while 44.23 kilometre falls along river. The Centre had undertaken a fencing project to cover the entire stretch of international border at a sanctioned cost of `6337 crore to be undertaken in three phases. It is this work that the Court was
monitoring.