New Delhi: The Central Government has slammed Maharashtra for staking claim over Gulbarga and Belgaum districts of Karnataka and asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the state's plea with "exemplary costs".
Maharashtra by its original suit in 2004, and a subsequent application in 2009, staked claim over 814 villages spread over the two districts merged with Karnataka over five decades ago. All these villages have predominantly Marathi-speaking people, it claimed.
"The transfer of certain areas to then Mysore (now Karnataka) was neither arbitrary nor wrong," the Central Government said in an affidavit.
Asking the apex court to dismiss Maharashtra's application with "exemplary costs", the government's affidavit said that before the State Reorganisation Commission (SRC) the "language of the people has been one of the criteria, but not the sole criterion for the inclusion of any area in a state".
The Central Government's affidavit said that a substantial question of law was involved in Maharashtra's application.
The affidavit filed by Home Ministry Director Praveen Kumari Singh said the "SRC had a balanced approach to the issue and not arbitrary".
The affidavit said: "It is not correct to say that certain areas were wrongly merged with Karnataka."
"Both Parliament and the Union Government had looked into all relevant factors while considering the State Reorganization Bill, 1956 and the Bombay Reorganisation Bill, 1960 and decided the village, taluka and municipal areas, towns etc. which were to be included in the concerned states," the affidavit said.
The Central Government said that the mere fact the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 provides for a mechanism for settling matters through mutual consent among the concerned states clearly shows that the act was not arbitrary.
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