01 September,2026 01:29 PM IST | New Delhi | mid-day online correspondent
Supreme Court of India. File Pic
The Maharashtra government on Tuesday sought an early hearing in the Supreme Court on its 2004 lawsuit concerning its long-standing border dispute with Karnataka over 865 villages and towns with significant Marathi-speaking populations that are currently administered by the neighbouring state.
The dispute, which has remained unresolved for decades, centres on areas including Belagavi, Karwar and Nipani. Maharashtra has maintained that several Marathi-speaking areas were wrongly included in Karnataka following the reorganisation of states along linguistic lines.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was urged by Maharashtra's counsel to list the matter for hearing, arguing that the pleadings in the case had been completed.
The counsel submitted that the matter was now ready to be heard and sought an early listing of the original suit filed by Maharashtra.
"Eight hundred and sixty-five villages having Marathi speaking people are in Karnataka and this is against the principle based on which states were reorganised on the ground of languages," the counsel said.
The Maharashtra government has argued that the inclusion of these areas in Karnataka is inconsistent with the linguistic basis on which state boundaries were redrawn during the reorganisation of Indian states.
Responding to the request for an early hearing, Chief Justice Surya Kant said the court would examine the case.
"I cannot assure a listing," he added.
The Supreme Court did not immediately fix a date for hearing the dispute.
Maharashtra's request comes more than two decades after it filed the original suit in the Supreme Court challenging Karnataka's control over the disputed areas and questioning provisions linked to the territorial reorganisation carried out in 1956.
The areas at the centre of the dispute include Belagavi, Karwar and Nipani, along with hundreds of other villages and towns that Maharashtra claims have substantial Marathi-speaking populations.
Belagavi, formerly known as Belgaum, has been one of the most prominent locations in the border dispute and has periodically remained a source of political tension between Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Maharashtra has consistently sought the transfer of the disputed areas to its territory, while Karnataka has maintained that its existing boundaries are settled and that there is no question of altering them.
The dispute has its roots in the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, under which India's state boundaries were redrawn largely along linguistic lines.
Belagavi was incorporated into the erstwhile Mysore state, now Karnataka, following the reorganisation, while neighbouring Marathi-speaking areas became part of Maharashtra.
Maharashtra has argued that the linguistic composition of several villages and towns now under Karnataka's administration should have resulted in their inclusion in Maharashtra.
The state filed its original suit in the Supreme Court in 2004, challenging Karnataka's control over the disputed territory and seeking resolution of the border issue.
(With inputs from PTI)
