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A Meghalaya-based organisation has asked the State authorities to clarify the presumption of the authoritative correspondence linked to the implementation of the Instrument of Accession and the accompanying Annexed Agreement signed betwixt Khasi tribal chiefs and the Government of India successful 1948.
Twenty-five Khasi States signed the agreements betwixt December 15, 1947, and March 19, 1948. These documents integrated the States into the dominion of India portion aiming to sphere accepted administrative and judicial autonomy, alternatively than to effect a afloat merger.
The statement maintained section power implicit forests, land, and h2o rights.
In a missive to Meghalaya’s Chief Secretary Shakil Ahamed connected Wednesday (January 28, 2026), the HITO sought details of immoderate effect sent by the State to a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) missive dated November 27, 2014. The 12-year-old connection followed repeated representations connected the “non-implementation of the Instrument of Accession and the Annexed Agreement”.
Constitutional grey area
The organisation said the contented concerns “national solemn commitments” made astatine the clip of accession. It argued that decades of hold person near accepted Khasi institutions successful a law grey area.
Citing studies by its acquisition and probe wings, the organisation said sustained representations by Khasi chiefs and bodies had earlier drawn the attraction of law authorities. These included interventions by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), which wrote to the MHA successful 2014, recommending that the agreements beryllium concluded and their provisions incorporated into the Constitution of India.
The missive besides referred to a connection from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) dated June 16, 2012, which stated that the substance fell wrong the ambit of Parliament and advised the petitioners to attack the authorities for redress.
Political acknowledgement
The HITO noted that governmental parties person besides acknowledged the issue. It quoted a Bharatiya Janata Party argumentation connection for Meghalaya, pledging respect for pre-Independence agreements with tribal rulers and enactment to fulfil their spirit.
The organisation recalled that successful October 2013, a delegation of 30 chiefs submitted a akin memorandum to past President Pranab Mukherjee during his sojourn to Shillong. Comparable memoranda were besides fixed to earlier Presidents.
According to the HITO, the nonaccomplishment to instrumentality the 1948 agreements has led to ongoing conflicts betwixt customary systems and cardinal laws connected land, forests, mining, coal, and accusation rights. It said these tensions are reflected successful repeated resolutions of the Meghalaya Assembly connected issues specified arsenic the Inner Line Permit, language, boundaries, and amendments to Scheduled Tribe orders.
The HITO further argued that Khasi, Jaintia, and Garo accepted institutions were near successful limbo aft January 26, 1950, erstwhile the Khasi States were placed wrong Assam nether the First Schedule and brought nether the Sixth Schedule, adjacent though the agreements remained unfulfilled. It described this arsenic a structural anomaly that has continued for 78 years.
Drawing a examination with the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, the HITO said Sixth Schedule areas were excluded connected the presumption that accepted systems already existed. However, it argued that these systems person ne'er been intelligibly integrated oregon recognised wrong a settled law framework, with autonomous territory councils functioning lone arsenic an interim arrangement.
