Agartala, Dec 14 : The central government may amend the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971, to set up a separate high court in Tripura, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said here Monday.

All the seven northeastern states, excluding Sikkim, come under the jurisdiction of the Guwahati High Court. Sikkim has a separate high court.

All parties in Tripura have been demanding a separate high court in Tripura for the past three decades.

"The union law minister in a letter has informed me that to set up a separate high court in Tripura, the union home ministry has to amend the 1971 act," Sarkar told the Tripura assembly during a debate over the long-pending issue.

"The union home ministry is now considering to amend the act," he added

The house also witnessed a heated debate over the low representation of high court judges in the Guwahati High Court from Tripura.

Opposition Congress legislator Gopal Roy, also a senior lawyer, told the house that of the 21 judges in the Guwahati High Court currently, against the sanctioned number of
24, 14 were from Assam, four from Manipur while one each from Tripura, Mizoram and Nagaland, and there was none from Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.

"There should be more judges and proper representation from different northeastern states to settle the long pending thousands of cases in the high court," Roy demanded.

Sarkar, who also holds the home portfolio, said that around 77,500 cases have been pending in different courts in Tripura, including at the Agartala bench of the Guwahati High Court, where 6,320 cases were pending.

According to the chief minister, during the last financial year, 5,481 cases have been settled by 248 Lok Adalats in Tripura.

A series of agitations, including strikes, were organised by the lawyers and political parties in Tripura. Delegations from various political parties and legislators met the prime minister and union law ministers on a number of occasions to press the demand for a separate high court for Tripura. (IANS)