SHILLONG, MAY 5: Most of the top notch officers in the Meghalaya government seem to be in total disarray and confusion on whether to involve the headmen on various development works initiated by the state government as there is no direction to them from the state government “not to ask the assistance of the headmen” as per the Meghalaya high court justice SR Sen order.
In his order, Justice Sen directed the Meghalaya government that no assistance should be sought from the headmen as the headmen have no powers to issue any kind or certificates unless empowered by laws.
But the Meghalaya government seems to have overlooked issuing instruction to the officers of most of the departments to comply with the high court order except to the commissioners & secretaries of home, the District Council Affairs (DCA) departments and to the deputy commissioners of eleven districts.
Meghalaya law secretary LM Sangma was initially not forthcoming as to why the state government had not issued any circular to all the departments with instruction on the backdrop of Justice Sen order.
Sangma, firstly, claimed he had not received any such order to issue a circular to all the departments accusing reporters of acting like “inquiry officer” but instantly asked his staff to fish-out the ordered issued by the law department to the DCA, home department and the DCs and showed the instructions issued to these department.
Responding to a query as to why the same instruction was not issued to officers of other departments as there are many departments like Social Welfare, Border Area Development (BAD) Community & Rural Development (C&RD, Fisheries, Agriculture and Elections that have to seek assistance of the headmen in implementing its projects, Sangma said, “Ignorance of law is not an excuse, and the high court order is a law.”
Of course the direction issued to the deputy commissioners relates to the implementation of the MPLADS schemes that invariable need to assistance of the headmen.
However, another big question that has remained unanswered is as to how MLAs are going to implement the SDWP and CRRP schemes on the backdrop of the Meghalaya high court direction as traditionally and by practise these schemes have been implement after due consultations and approval of the headmen.-
Involving does not mean issuing.. and approving the MLA and MP schemes is in consultation and the identification by the Durbar of certain areas needing development (sustainable). the villagers (who constitute the Durbar) will all sign in the meetings where they have been consulted. Just depending on the headman without having consulted the real stakeholders is a total abuse and violation.High court order does not stop involvement of the people and their participation in the options of schemes they would like to be implemented feasible in their village, where there can be accountability and transparency. But this deliberate attempt to empower headmen is not accepted by many as many are abusing their powers for MP and MLA schemes and MPs and MLAs use these Headmen when election time comes to garner votes and schemes are given to only those who elected the particular MP or MLA or MDC.
I suggest would be good for some time to let the villagers give sound advice to people in law making as villagers seem to have more ideas on how to govern… fairly.. When the system is corrupt the mind gets corrupt and the corrupt government servants know how to twist around with words to help the corrupt..