GUWAHATI, Aug 22 - The Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha has appealed to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and the All Assam Students� Union (AASU) to declare in unambiguous terms their support to the United Nations� 2007 Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.
The Mahasangha said in a statement here today that a decision on its plea before the Supreme Court of India for issuing a direction to the Government of India to apply the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples for the benefit of the indigenous peoples of Assam, is pending. The Mahasangha plea was made as part of the pleas made in the petition (Writ Petition No 562/2012) it had filed before the apex court on the foreigners issue.
The Congress-led governments both in the State and at the Centre had, through affidavits, told the two-man bench comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Rohintan F Nariman of the Supreme Court that they were not in support of the said UN Declaration. Even the then AASU general secretary Tapan Kumar Gogoi, through an affidavit filed on July 26, 2013, had told the Supreme Court that AASU was not in support of the said UN Declaration.
Therefore, in all fairness, Chief Minister Sonowal should file an affidavit in support of the above UN Declaration before the apex court ahead of its constituting the Constitutional Bench on the matters referred to in the above case. The AASU should also file such an affidavit in support of the said UN Declaration, said the Mahasangha in its statement.
It mentioned in this respect that by joining hands with 143 other countries in voting in favour of passing this Declaration on September 13, 2007 at Geneva, the Government of India has remained committed to the UN Declaration. The Mahasangha has hence made the above plea before the Supreme Court of India to direct the Government of India to implement the Declaration in Assam.
