The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Sabha has managed to draft rules for regulating its procedures and conducting business, 10 years after the hill body was formed.

Sources said the GTA Sabha had circulated the “final draft” of the “Rules of Procedures and conduct of Business” among 45 elected and five nominated members at the meeting of the hill body held in Darjeeling on Monday.

“The members have been asked to submit their observations and opinions within 15 days,” said a source.

Every elected body, be it the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Assemblies or even municipalities, is governed by rules of procedure and conduct of business.

The rules state how the elected bodies should function, right from issuing notices to calling a meeting. The rules also deal with the conduct of various chairs and debates and mention how details of meetings should be put on record and published.

However, for some reason or other, such guidelines had never been framed by the GTA Sabha in the past.

Pradip Pradhan, the first chairman of the GTA Sabha which was formed in 2012, does “remember” drawing up the rules of procedure and conduct of business for the hill body.

“I remember drawing up the rules. We had fixed sessions like budget session and monsoon session, and other details for the GTA Sabha,” Pradhan had earlier told this newspaper.

Pradhan said he had even wanted to visit Bengal and Sikkim Assemblies to have first-hand information on how an elected body functioned and also go through the rules of conducting business.

“The GTA (authorities), for reasons best known to them, did not allow us to visit the two Assemblies. Nevertheless, the rules were framed,” said Pradhan.

There is, however, no clarity on what happened to the rules.

“Even after the rules were drawn up, the Sabha was never conducted in the manner it had to be. The Sabha was called at the whims and fancy of the then GTA chief,” said Pradhan.

Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung was the GTA chief executive then.

After drawing up the rules, the GTA Sabha should have forwarded the same to the Bengal government for approval.

“We have no documents to fall back on for conducting the GTA Sabha,” admitted a GTA official.

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.

There are allegations that many documents were destroyed or went missing during that period. In fact, the 2017 agitation had started from the premise of the Bhavan following a clash between Morcha supporters and police.

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 shall 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 state that the quorum necessary for conducting transactions at the GTA Sabha is one-third of its total members and decisions shall be passed by a simple majority of members present.

Apart from the 50 GTA Sabha members, the MP, MLAs and the chairpersons of municipalities under the jurisdiction of the GTA Sabha are ex-officio members of the hill body.