The Supreme Court has set up a committee to oversee the border fencing work on the Indo-Bangladesh border.
The members of the committee are: G.K.Pillai, (Chairman) and D.K.Pathak, (Former DG, Border Security Force) and Prof.Abdul Mannan (Retd. Professor of Gauhati University) as Members.
The Bangladesh–India border, known locally as the International Border (IB), is an international border running between Bangladesh and India that demarcates the six divisions of Bangladesh and the Indian states.
Half of the 4,096-km border India shares with Bangladesh has been fenced. Land acquisition is a major challenge to completing the work by the 2019 deadline.
SC has asked the committee to submit its first report to the Court within three months.
Bangladesh and India share a 4,096 km (2,545 mi)-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world, including 262 km (163 mi) in Assam, 856 km (532 mi) in Tripura, 180 km (110 mi) in Mizoram, 443 km (275 mi) in Meghalaya, and 2,217 km (1,378 mi) in Bengal.
The Bangladeshi divisions of Mymensingh, Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Sylhet and Chittagong are situated along the border.
A number of pillars mark the border between the two states. Small demarcated portions of the border are fenced on both sides. The Land Boundary Agreement to simplify the border was ratified by both India and Bangladesh on 7 May 2015.
SC expressed the hope that the earlier Committee headed by Madhukar Gupta, ex-Home Secretary which was monitoring the issue of border fencing on the Western front could also do so for the Indo-Bangladesh border or at least the remaining unfenced area.
The Radcliffe Line was published on 17 August 1947 as a boundary demarcation line between India and Pakistan upon the partition of India. It was named after its architect, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who, as chairman of the Border Commissions, was charged with equitably dividing 175,000 square miles (450,000 km2) of territory with 88 million people.
