30 May 2002

NARMADA HEARING FIXED ON MONDAY

From Jal Khambata

NEW DELHI: Further construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada may be stayed by the Supreme Court in the hearing now fixed on Monday on the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) public interest litigation (PIL) challenging increase in the height from 90 to 95 metres.

Gujarat, which was looking forward to quickly raise the height to ultimately take the Narmada waters to people far away, is to be penalised for none of its fault but because of the stand of the Maharashtra Government that it is yet to resettle the oustees up to 95 metres and hence the construction should not continue.

The vacation Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice N Santosh Hegde and Justice S N Variava on Thursday pulled up the Centre and the State Governments for appearing without filing replies to the NBA petition and directed them to do so latest by Saturday to let them decide if the NBA facts are correct to issue orders.

The Maharashtra Government being a party to the Narmada Tribunal Award, its stand may influence the Court more than the submissions made by the NBA to stall the construction. Its counsel, appearing at an earlier hearing, has already pleaded to stop the construction on the ground that its resettlement and rehabilitation of oustees is not yet complete.

The Grievances Redressal Authorities set up in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to oversee resettlement and rehabilitation of the dam oustees were also directed to submit their reports on the latest ground reality by Saturday.

NBA leader Medha Patkar created a sensation by filing an additional affidavit to claim that the retired judge heading Maharashtra's GRA had dictated in her presence on May 27 that the resettlement was "not satisfactory" even at the dam's existing height of 90 metres, what to say of the new height of 95 metres allowed by the Narmada Control Authority (NCA).

The judges, however, made it clear that they were not going to reopen the case decided in favour of construction by a 3-judge Bench in the year 2000 and as such their scope was limited to the veracity of the facts submitted before them by the NBA.

The Supreme Court had permitted construction in stages of five metres each after satisfying resettlement of the oustees six months prior to any such construction while NBA's contention in the instant petition is that the NCA had granted permission to raise the dam's height to 95 metres without meeting this criteria.

So far as Gujarat goes, resettlement has been already completed up to 100 metres and as such the Gujarat Government had pressed with the NCA to permit construction up to 95 metres now and go up to 100 metres immediately after the monsoon is over. There are, however, some hitches in rehabilitation of the oustees falling in Madhya Pradesh jurisdiction.

The stumbling block in the 95-metre permission, however, is coming from Maharashtra as Medha Patkar is reported to have secured support of some 15-16 MLAs who have pressurised Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to stand by NBA in the Supreme Court. Support of these many MLAs is crucial for stability of the Deshmukh Government, it is pointed out.

While Solicitor-General Harish Salve pleaded that the NCA had given clearance to raise the dam's height to 95 metres only after getting "OK" reports from the environment sub-group and R&R sub-group, the Court said: "We want to see whether rehabilitation of the dam oustees was carried out actually or just on paper. ... We have to satisfy ourselves about the measures taken by the authorities and governments in this regard." END