Supreme Court Quashes High Court Order on Kakiho Village, Said Nagaland Govt to Reinitiate Process and Consider Public Objections Again

On May 23, the Supreme Court set aside a Gauhati High Court order that had directed the Nagaland Government to recognize Kakiho Village within three months. The apex court found that the conditions laid out in two official memorandum—dated March 22, 1996, and October 10, 2005—were not fully complied with.

According to customary practices in Nagaland, a new village can only be established with a ‘No Objection Certificate’ from the ancestral landowners. The 2005 memorandum added the requirement of a 30-day public notice to invite objections. The bench, comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, held that although notice was issued and objections were filed by Jalukai Village Council, it was unclear how seriously these objections were considered before proposing Kakiho's recognition.

The Court also noted the lack of clarity on the district jurisdiction of Kakiho village, which falls in a disputed boundary zone between Kohima and Dimapur districts. According to the Ezong Committee report (2002), villages in disputed areas should only be recognized after boundary demarcation. The Appellant claimed Kakiho lies in Kohima, while the Respondents said it is in Dimapur’s Dhansiripar sub-division.

Although the High Court dismissed the boundary dispute’s relevance, the Supreme Court noted that the recognition delay could have been due to genuine confusion over the village's exact location. Since 2021, however, the State clarified that Kakiho is 3.7 km outside the buffer zone. The matter remains part-heard and will be taken up again after six months.

Case Details: OLD JALUKAI VILLAGE COUNCIL v. KAKIHO VILLAGE AND ORS.|SLP(C) No. 9897/2016