The Meghalaya government is yet to return the Khasi Social Custom of Lineage (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018 to the Khasi Hill Autonomous District Council (KHADC) as the District Council Affairs department would first seek the views of the law department on the issue.
Earlier Governor Ganga Prasad has referred the Bill to the state government for its views and opinions.
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“The Bill has not been returned to the KHADC yet. It (Bill) is still with the state government, as views of the Law department would also be solicited,” sources told Northeast Now on Monday.
The Khasi Social Custom of Lineage (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018 was passed by the KHADC during its monsoon session on July 25.
The second Amendment Bill sought to deny a Khasi woman the Scheduled Tribe status and other privileges if she marries a non-Khasi man. Children born out of such wedlock will also lose benefits.
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Recently, KHADC chief executive member HS Shylla has indicated that the Executive Committee may write to the state government to request it to return both the first Amendment Bill, 2015 as well as the second Amendment Bill to do some more corrections.
Shylla also said if the second Amendment Bill is returned to the Council, the Executive Committee may consider referring the second Amendment Bill to a consultative committee being headed by former KHADC CEM Manstudy Nongrem for fine tuning it further.
Shylla said that the first amendment Bill passed by the KHADC in 2015 had “wrongly” inserted the process of appointing a clan elder (Rangbah Kur).
He further said that the clause related to the appointment of a clan elder should be deleted from the first amendment Bill.
According to Shylla, there is also a plan to introduce a Khasi Clan Bill, which will underline the appointment of Rangbah Kur (clan elder), registration of the clans.
A meeting of the Executive Committee to discuss about the second Amendment Bill was supposed to be held on Monday but it was postponed to Tuesday.