Odisha takes the Kotia border dispute with Andhra Pradesh to the Supreme Court

In 1968 the Odisha government went to the Supreme Court of India over a jurisdictional dispute with neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. At issue was the Kotia gram panchayat (village council), a cluster of hill villages in the mountainous border area between the two states, home largely to tribal communities.

The quarrel was rooted in unclear boundaries inherited from the colonial era and in the reorganisation of states along linguistic lines in the 1950s. Both states claimed administrative authority over the villages and carried out governance functions there, leaving residents caught between two sets of officials.

Odisha's approach to the country's highest court was an attempt to have its claim over the area settled legally rather than through negotiation alone. The case did not produce a quick settlement, and the dispute continued for decades, flaring up periodically over welfare schemes, development projects and elections.

The step mattered because it made the Kotia question a formal legal contest between two states. It also set the background for later tensions, in which villagers have sometimes been courted by both governments and have had access to services or voting rights from either side.