have no legal sancitity; If they have been undertaken under the Defence of India Rules, which they probably have, it is time that we have a public debate on them. Parliament has not debated them, no legislature has ratified them, and they have not been tested in the courts. The government of Assam neatly ducked an attempt at testing them; they cancelled the grouping orders for the villages referred to in a case before the Gauhati High Court. (I would make a shrewd guess and suggest that Tanhril and Melriat villages near Aizawl, where the old trees yet offer shade, were the villages excluded from grouping.) The government of Assam did not care for legal proprietiesUnlike Nagaland, no legal cover was sought even after grouping was accomplished. I have used the Nagaland Regulation more as a model
