Mullaperiyar Dam Case : Supervisory Committee Should Be Reconstituted To Include Technical Members, Kerala Tells Supreme Court [Hearing Day 1]

The Supreme Court on Wednesday began hearing a batch of writ petitions raising safety concerns about the Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala, which is a long-standing dispute between the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.At the outset, Justice A. M. Khanwilkar, the presiding judge of the bench, told Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta, for state of Kerala: "Your interest and state obligation is identical. There can be no difference of opinion on that. Please don't consider this as an adversarial litigation. We are not going to decide political issues here, but what issues have to be addressed here will have to be seen. How many petitions are there? What is the nature of relief sought?"Mr. Gupta: "In Joe Joseph's matter (lead petition), a very substantive order has already been passed and the matter said that the supervisory committee which has been appointed by this court had delegated its task by constituting a sub-committee and it is objected to in that petition. The second set of prayers was that certain aspects have not been completed for several years and that primarily were the Rule Curve, the instrumentation and the gate operation schedule has not been done. Your lordships have already given a substantial direction saying that Tamil Nadu must come forward and finalise these things. The rest of the matter deals with certain aspects relating to those concerning the report of the Central water commission. In this writ petition, there is one I. A. by a party saying that they have some technology which can be used for the purpose of instrumentation etc. Second writ petition is called the Save Kerala Brigade. Certain additional issues have been raised there and Tamil Nadu has filed its counter. In this matter, there is an intervention by a member of Parliament by the name of Dean Kuriakose. The next writ petition is Periyar Valley Protection Movement. The fourth matter is an SLP called Suraksha charitable trust. They had gone to the High Court of Kerala with a prayer that the original lease deed in favour of Tamil Nadu should be cancelled and for building of a protective structure. This was the subject matter of their petition. The High Court dismissed it saying these are matters before the Supreme Court and we don't wish to get into it and if you wish, you can go to the Supreme Court"Justice Khanwilkar: "Probably there are issues of structural stability and incidental to that there are issues of water level because it affects the structural stability also. The second issue would be the breach of lease conditions. These are broadly the points"Mr. Gupta: "I have the duty to flag one aspect- in the first writ petition, respondent three is Central water commission, which is the Union of India. The fourth respondent is the supervisory committee appointed by this court. There seems to be no representation filed on behalf of the supervisory committee. The same AOR as for the Central water commission has filed a representation on behalf of the supervisory committee. The committee is a bipartisan committee- it has members of the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and it is presided over by the CWC member. We have found that respondent no. 4 has not taken a bipartisan approach on this matter. The Kerala member has given a letter saying that no decision was taken by the committee to appoint (...) as the advocate on record for the respondent no. 4"Justice Khanwilkar: "How does it matter? If we need assistance, we will treat him as an Amicus Curiae. To the extent he is taking a particular position, you are there to correct us"Mr. Gupta: "I am not raising any issue with regard to that right now"Justice Khanwilkar: "Everybody should examine the matter with a broad approach and open eyes, it is not adversarial"Mr. Gupta: "Yes, all of us are citizens of India. If any one of us is in danger, then whoever is the authority would be concerned. This is not about any two states"Continuing, he began to make submissions on the brief facts of the dispute- "The dam is at a moderately high altitude. The submergence area is all forest surrounded (indicates from a picture of the dam)...In the Cauvery matter, I had made a query to my clients as to how you define a basin. It is done by using a contour map. Every height is shown in different contour lines, the heights of those contour lines around the river will be the limit of the basin because if water falls beyond that point, it will go into some other basin. The importance of the basin of the river is that all water which comes into that area will move towards that river and that is why it is also called the catchment area. The second thing is that this 114 sq. km of the Periyar river catchment area which falls in Tamil Nadu makes it an interstate river. So the jurisdiction of the state Supreme Court depends on that. The Tamil people call it the Mullai Periyar which is the name of a flower 'jasmine' and the Kerala people call it based on the Mullayar river and Periyar river- Mullaperiyar. It was...

Mullaperiyar Dam Case : Supervisory Committee Should Be Reconstituted To Include Technical Members, Kerala Tells Supreme Court [Hearing Day 1]

Mehal Jain

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