Guwahati, May 29: Nondescript Mukalmua now has a royal connect after Gauhati High Court upheld the state government’s decision to change the name of the village to Narayanpur Mukalmua.

Narayanpur is a village adjacent to Mukalmua village, about 55km from here, in Nalbari district of Assam and takes its name from the 16th century Koch king Naranarayan, who is said to have stayed there once. Mukalmua, locals say, derived its name from a British soldier Stuart Makal, who stayed in the village before Independence.

The court ruling came after a seven-month legal battle following objections raised against the new nomenclature by a resident of the village Kalim Ullah on the ground that no public hearing had been held before the name change. He had filed a writ petition in October last year, challenging a notification of the state revenue and disaster management department issued in July last year.

The department had instructed Nalbari district administration to write Narayanpur Mukalmua on the signboards of government offices in Mukalmua, following demands from NGOs and citizens of Narayanpur who wanted to immortalise the king’s visit thus. “The NGOs demanded inclusion of Narayanpur as Maharaj Naranarayan had once stayed in the village,” lawyer J.I. Borbhuyan, who, along with K.H. Choudhury and F. Begum, appeared on behalf of the NGOs, told The Telegraph.

Representatives of 15 local NGOs and citizen’s groups from Mukalmua and Narayanpur had appeared in court during hearing of the petitions and supported the government notification.

Some of the offices where the administration was asked to insert the name of Narayanpur are Barkhetri revenue circle office, Barkhetri block development office, the office of the assistant executive engineer, the PWD Mukalmua rural roads sub-division and the telephone exchange.

A single bench of the high court, in its order issued on April 8 this year, dismissed Kalim Ullah’s petition saying that president and general secretary of Mukalmua Gaon Unnayan Samiti were heard by the district administration before prefixing Mukalmua with Narayanpur.

Unhappy with the order, Kalim Ullah again filed a writ appeal in the high court challenging it. The petition cited an official communication of the revenue department, which said the offices were situated in Mukalmua.

A division bench of Chief Justice A.K. Goel and Justice N. Chaudhury on May 22 dismissed the appeal on the ground that the appellant had raised the same issue of villagers not being heard. A copy of the court’s judgment was made available to this correspondent today.

“Merely the nomenclature has been changed by incorporation of the name of Narayanpur. In fact, names of both the villages, Mukalmua and Narayanpur, find place under the existing nomenclature,” the judgment said.

Nearly 30,000 people reside in greater Narayanpur Mukalmua.