"It is not for the Supreme Court to decide how the government should ensure the right to water; in any case, the connection between this right and the river linking project is tenuous."
The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : With all due respect, My Lords: Supreme Court, in its order, explicitly directs the Executive Government to implement the Inter-Linking of Rivers (ILR) Project, and to set up a Special Committee to carry out that implementation; it lays down that the committee's decisions shall take precedence over all administrative bodies created under the orders of this court or otherwise; it (graciously) authorises the Cabinet to take all final and appropriate decisions, and lays down a time-limit of 30 days for such decision-making (though it has the saving grace to say “preferably”); and it grants “liberty to the learned Amicus Curiae to file contempt petition in this court, in the event of default or non-compliance of the directions contained in this order”.
The Supreme Court was clearly entitled to ask the government to state categorically where it stood on this project. What it was not entitled to do was to issue a direction to the government to implement the project. It has done so since the Supreme Court is convinced that the project is good and urgently needed; and that a very important national initiative is getting bogged down because of various reasons and needs to be galvanised.
The view that the country faces a looming water crisis; that the answer lies in augmenting supplies; that given the magnitude and distribution of India's future water requirements, the ILR project is the best possible answer; and that it is in the national interest to implement it quickly. It is that conviction that provides, in the Supreme Court's view, the justification for its intervention. If that view of India's water crisis and its solution is challenged, the whole basis for the Supreme Court's order collapses. There is a diversity of views on it, which the Supreme Court has failed to consider.
The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : With all due respect, My Lords: Supreme Court, in its order, explicitly directs the Executive Government to implement the Inter-Linking of Rivers (ILR) Project, and to set up a Special Committee to carry out that implementation; it lays down that the committee's decisions shall take precedence over all administrative bodies created under the orders of this court or otherwise; it (graciously) authorises the Cabinet to take all final and appropriate decisions, and lays down a time-limit of 30 days for such decision-making (though it has the saving grace to say “preferably”); and it grants “liberty to the learned Amicus Curiae to file contempt petition in this court, in the event of default or non-compliance of the directions contained in this order”.
The Supreme Court was clearly entitled to ask the government to state categorically where it stood on this project. What it was not entitled to do was to issue a direction to the government to implement the project. It has done so since the Supreme Court is convinced that the project is good and urgently needed; and that a very important national initiative is getting bogged down because of various reasons and needs to be galvanised.
The view that the country faces a looming water crisis; that the answer lies in augmenting supplies; that given the magnitude and distribution of India's future water requirements, the ILR project is the best possible answer; and that it is in the national interest to implement it quickly. It is that conviction that provides, in the Supreme Court's view, the justification for its intervention. If that view of India's water crisis and its solution is challenged, the whole basis for the Supreme Court's order collapses. There is a diversity of views on it, which the Supreme Court has failed to consider.
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