Aizawl: The Supreme Court has dismissed a writ petition by the Mizo Chief Council alleging that the Union of India acquired the lands of tribal chieftains in the erstwhile Lushai Hills district, now Mizoram, without paying compensation.The judgment was delivered last Wednesday by a bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan.The petition was filed by L. Chinzah, president of the Mizo Chief Council, on behalf of former tribal chieftains and their legal heirs. The petition claimed the chiefs were deprived of land without compensation, violating their right to property, which was a fundamental right at the time under Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31.The court acknowledged that the claims arose when the right to property was protected as a fundamental right, but held that the petitioners failed to prove any violation.The former chiefs had also argued that they were on par with rulers of erstwhile princely states under British rule and were therefore entitled to similar treatment. The court rejected that claim.The bench said, “However, this assertion, much like its above claims, is entirely devoid of any legal basis and thereby merits outright rejection. The privy purses and other privileges granted to the erstwhile rulers of the Princely States were the direct outcome of specific, pre-constitutional political and contractual arrangements negotiated between those rulers and the Government. Consequently, it would be legally flawed to equate and elevate these entitlements to the status of a right, which all erstwhile rulers were constitutionally bestowed upon. Such political arrangements cannot be claimed as a matter of a legally enforceable right, much less a fundamental right.”The case centred on the historical role of Mizo chiefs, who the council said were absolute owners of village lands known as “Ram”. According to the petition, chiefs administered these lands, exercised executive and judicial authority, allotted farmland to villagers and received “Fathang”, a customary tribute usually paid in paddy.The court traced the background to the British annexation of the Lushai Hills in the 1890s. It noted that the colonial administration retained the chieftainship system for administrative convenience, with chiefs functioning within a structure controlled by the chief commissioner of Assam and district officials.After Independence, the Lushai Hills remained under Assam. The Assam legislature then enacted the Assam Lushai Hills District (Acquisition of Chief’s Rights) Act, 1954, to acquire the rights and interests of chiefs over land in the district.Under the law, the state govt was empowered to issue notifications transferring a chief’s rights in his “Ram” to the state. The legislation permanently took away the chiefs’ powers and land rights after payment of compensation.
