Tripura tribal customary law panel plans Dec 7 sit-in, warns of bandh

A coalition of tribal community leaders in Tripura has announced a three-hour mass sit-in in Agartala on December 7 to press for the enactment of customary laws for the state's 14 tribal communities, and has said it may call a statewide shutdown if the government does not act.

The Tripura Tribal Customary Law Coordination Committee took the decision at a meeting of community leaders and traditional chiefs at the Agartala Press Club on Sunday, November 1, according to a report by TripuraInfo. Committee members later briefed reporters on the programme.

Bills passed, but not yet law

The committee's core complaint is about delay. It says the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) unanimously passed 14 separate customary law bills, one for each of the communities concerned, at a council session on December 28, 2022. Nearly four years later, the committee says, the process of turning those bills into enforceable law has not been completed, so the traditional legal systems of these communities still lack full statutory backing.

Members said they had written to and met both the state government and the ADC administration several times, but that no effective step had followed. They did not set out which specific stage of the legislative process is pending.

The protest plan

Under the agitation programme, the sit-in will run for three hours from 12 noon on December 7 at the foot of the Gandhi statue near the Circuit House in Agartala. Leaders said the aim is to push the state government and the TTAADC to clear the pending bills quickly. If the demand is still ignored after that, the committee said it would consider a statewide bandh to step up the movement.

Birendra Tripura, Shanti Chakma and Khanaram Reang were among those who spoke at the press conference, stressing the importance of legal recognition for the customary practices of Tripura's many tribal groups.

A live court challenge

The announcement comes while a separate legal question hangs over one of these codes. A public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court by advocate Madhumita Bhattacharjee challenges a provision of the Jamatia Customary Laws Act that reportedly allows rape cases to be settled through monetary penalties. The petition questions whether such a provision can stand alongside constitutional protections and central criminal law. TripuraInfo reported that the speakers on Sunday did not comment in any detail on that case.

Neither the Tripura government nor the TTAADC had publicly responded to the committee's December 7 programme at the time of writing. NEInsider will follow the issue as the date approaches.