The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Sabha, formed 10 years ago, still does not have approved rules to run itself because of which the newly formed Sabha has no set directives to carry on with the proceedings.
The newly elected Sabha is now looking at holding a meeting of its legal cell this week to draw up rules so that the Sabha can meet in September.
Every government assembly — be it the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, state assemblies or municipalities — are governed by rules of procedure and conduct of business.
The rules state how the assembly should function, right from issuing notices to calling a meeting, conduct of various chairs including debates to putting in record and publishing the meeting details.
Pradip Pradhan, the first chairman of GTA Sabha, which was formed in 2012 does “remember” drawing up the rules of procedure and conduct of business for GTA Sabha. “I remember drawing up rules. We had fixed sessions —budget session, monsoon session — and other details for the GTA Sabha,” said Pradhan.
Pradhan added that they had even wanted to visit Bengal Assembly and Sikkim Assembly to have first-hand information on how an assembly functions and also go through the rules of conducting business.
“The GTA (chief executive), for reasons best known to them, did not allow us to visit the two assemblies. Nevertheless, the rules were drawn up,” said Pradhan.
There is, however, no clarity and what happened to the rules.
“Even after the rules were drawn up, the Sabha was called on the whims and fancies of the then GTA chief,” said Pradhan.
Bimal Gurung, president of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha was the GTA chief then.
Anjul Chouhan, the newly elected chairman of the GTA said that the new Sabha had no documents to fall back upon.
“We are facing a lot of problems. We do not have any documents to fall back on,” said Chouhan.
This is largely because the Gorkha Rangamanch Bhavan in Darjeeling, which houses the GTA Sabha, was used to shelter paramilitary forces during the 2017 agitation and was under the district administration for more than a year.
In fact, the 2017 agitation had started from the premises of the Bhavan following a clash between Morcha supporters and the police. There are allegations that many documents were destroyed or went missing during that
period.
“Our legal team will sit for a meeting this week to draw up the rules. We are looking at holding the Sabha meeting in September,” Chouhan informed The Telegraph.
The GTA Act only has basic guidelines for the GTA Sabha.
The Act states that the Sabha shall meet for the conduct of business “at least once in every three months” and conduct its business in such manner and in accordance with procedures as may be determined by “its regulation with the approval of the Government.”
The other rules laid down in the Act states that the quorum necessary for transaction of GTA Sabha is one-third of its total members and decisions shall be passed by a simple majority of votes of members present.
Apart from the 50 GTA members, the MPs, MLAs and the chairpersons of municipalities are also ex-officio members of the GTA Sabha. Former GTA Sabha members said that they don’t recall MPs, MLA and civic chiefs ever being invited to Sabha meetings in the past.