The Supreme Court today sought a response from the Karnataka government on an application moved by Maharashtra contending that the boundary issues between the two states have not been settled in accordance with the settled principle.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan granted four weeks to the Karnataka government to respond to the notice on the contention of Maharashtra government which said that the principle laid down for the re-organisation of states under Article 3 of the Constitution has been violated.

The boundary disputes between the two states have been pending for long in the Supreme Court with Karnataka demanding Kannada speaking area from Maharashtra and vice-versa.

The Maharashtra government in its fresh application said that while the boundary issue of other states were settled on the basis of the linguistic and cultural factors, such was not considered when Belgaum, a pre-dominantly Marathi speaking area went to Karnataka.

It alleged that there was a hostile discrimination while settling the boundary dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka.

The governments of the two states have taken opposite stand on the recommendations of the Mahajan Commission which was constituted by the Centre to settle the dispute.

Maharashtra has demanded that the disputed areas should be given Union Territory status till the issue is decided by the court.