New Delhi, August 24
The Supreme Court has dismissed the review petition of Punjab seeking reconsideration of its order asking the Centre to construct the unfinished portion of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, virtually restoring the June 4 position when the judgement to this effect was passed by the apex court.
A Bench comprising Ms Justice Ruma Pal and Mr Justice P V Reddi, which had passed the June 4 verdict, has rejected Punjab’s petition for review of the order, saying that after giving a “careful consideration” to the contentions raised by the state, “no merit was found” in its plea.
The review petition was though listed by the court for hearing on August 19, but the one para order for its dismissal was made available for circulation among the parties only today. As per the apex court procedure, the review petition is considered by the judges of the same Bench in their chamber without any assistance from counsel for the parties.
The scope of a review petition against a judgement is very limited because the court only examines whether any error of facts or the law had creeped in the verdict.
Though four important developments — filing of review petition by Punjab on July 3, the Centre moving an application for a fresh direction on the SYL issue, Punjab terminating all water accords with neighbouring states since 1981 by passing a legislation, the Union Government seeking apex court’s opinion on the validity of Punjab’s Act through Presidential
reference — had taken place in between, the order rejecting the review petition has virtually restored the June 4 judgement because the court had not granted any stay on it, while admitting the Presidential
reference for hearing.
Since the Centre’s petition seeking fresh direction in the SYL case has not yet been listed for hearing by the court, nor has the government pressed for it by making any special mention, the order for dismissal of Punjab’s review petition would mean that there was no legal hurdle in the way of the June 4 directive of the apex court to the Centre asking it to commence the work on the SYL project.
In the four-point Presidential reference also, the Centre has not made any mention about the apex court directive on construction of the SYL as it had only dealt with the validity of “the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act,” passed
by the state Assembly on July 12 and related water-sharing issues raised by Punjab.
Punjab in its review petition had challenged the apex court judgement on the ground that it had gone “beyond” the arguments addressed by counsel of the parties. It said that the arguments were addressed only on the question of “maintainability” of Punjab’s suit seeking to absolve it from the obligation to construct the SYL, not on the Haryana’s plea seeking its construction by the Centre.
Besides, it had raised the issue of the court’s jurisdiction to decide the water dispute between two states, drop of inflow of water in Punjab rivers, right of the riparian states and non-implementation of 10-point Rajiv-Longowal pact under which construction of the SYL was one of the issues.
While asking the Centre to appoint a special agency to execute the unfinished SYL project and ordering Punjab to hand over the land on which the canal has to be built to the said agency, the court in its judgement had made it clear that construction of the canal had nothing to do with the “water-sharing” dispute between Punjab and Haryana. It had said that the Rs 560 crore spent on the 214-km canal project so far could not be allowed to go down the drain.
The court had severely criticised Chief Minister Amarinder Singh for not implementing its January 15, 2002, decree asking Punjab to build the canal in its territory within one year. In the review petition, the Punjab Government had sought expunging of the strictures against Capt Amarinder Singh, but the Court had not said anything on it in its order.
The court in the June 4 judgement had observed that “it is the Constitutional duty of those who wield power in the states to create appropriate political climate to ensure respect for the constitutional process and not set such process at naught only to gain political mileage.”
The court had said that the construction of the SYL was started only after an greement among Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan in the presence of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on December 13, 1981, which had led to both — Punjab and Haryana — withdrawing their cases against each other from the apex court on the water-sharing dispute.
The court had also rejected Punjab’s plea challenging the validity of Section 14 of Inter-State Water Dispute Act, saying the state had not “disclosed any cause of action” in this regard.
It had further made it clear that its order asking the Centre to build the canal, was not based on the quantum of water that may be made available to Haryana, saying Punjab’s plea that its application on water-sharing issue was pending before the Inter-State Water Dispute Tribunal, would not apply to the construction of the SYL.
Consequent to the June 4 verdict, the Centre had assigned the construction work to the Central Public Works Department but it could not commence the same as Punjab, in a bid to “circumvent” the apex court order, had abrogated the water accords with neighbouring states since 1981, putting the Union Government in a dilemma.
