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