The Jharkhand government seems to have again gone into a confrontation mode with the governor on the 1932 khatiyan-based (land survey) local bill.

A day after Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahato informed the House about governor C.P. Radhakrishnan returning the bill on the use of 1932 land survey records to determine domicile status for reconsideration, JMM central general secretary and party spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya told reporters on Saturday that the government would resend the bill “as it is” to the governor.

“The khatiyan (land survey records) are of sentimental value for the moolvasis (original settlers) of the state and our party can never compromise on it at any cost. The bill was passed unanimously in the Assembly and sent to the governor. It is surprising that the governor sat on it for one full year and returned it without any observation. After the government prodded the governor to send the observation it sent it again with certain riders,” said Bhattacharya.

“The Assembly will be sending the bill as it is to the governor for the second time and it will become the constitutional obligation of the governor to give assent to the bill,” said Bhattacharya.

The JMM leads the coalition government in the state along with the Congress and the RJD ever since coming to power in December 2019.

“It is the right time for the JMM to rake up the issue with a few months left for the Lok Sabha polls and nearly a year for the Assembly polls and project before the masses that the BJP is not interested in approving the 1932- based domicile policy and is using governor as its tool,” said a senior political columnist.

The Jharkhand Definition for Local Persons and for Extending Consequential, Social, Cultural and Other Benefits to Such Local Persons Bill of 2022 has set the land survey settlements of 1932 as the benchmark for identifying the locals of the state.

The bill was passed in an extended monsoon session last year in November but returned by the then governor Ramesh Bais, stating that it violated the constitutional provisions.

On Friday, Mahato informed the House during the first day of the winter session of the Assembly that governor Radhakrishnan has returned the bill for reconsideration.

The Speaker read out the message he received from the Raj Bhavan secretariat.

In the message, the governor mentioned that the “bill is being returned for reconsideration as per the legal and constitutional opinion of Ld. Attorney General for India”.

Section-6 (a) of the Bill may be violative of Article-14 and Article-16 (2) of the Constitution and thereby invalid, it said.