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New Delhi, July 10
As Haryana’s main opposition party INLD stepped up its agitation over the delay in construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, the Manohar Lal Khattar government on Tuesday requested the Supreme Court to list the matter for hearing at the earliest.
Senior advocates Shyam Divan and Jagdeep Dhankhar mentioned the case before Justice Amitava Roy – who has been a part of the bench headed by Justice PC Ghosh that heard the SYL canal case – only to be advised to approach the CJI for setting up of a new bench as Justice Ghosh retired during summer vacation.
Divan and Dhankhar again mentioned the matter before Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and pointed out that it was to come up for hearing on July 11 but the case was not there in the list.
On behalf of the Punjab government, senior counsel RS Suri said it should be listed for hearing next week.
The CJI assured that a new bench would be constituted soon. The case is likely to be listed on Tuesday.
On the last date of hearing on April 27, the top court had reiterated that its order for construction of SYL canal must be implemented.
“The dignity of the decree passed by this court must be maintained…. Whether the matter is settled or not settled, we are not bothered about it…we are bothered about implementation of our order,” a bench headed by Justice Ghose (Since retired) had said.
The court’s comments had come after Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar told the bench that there have been talks between Punjab and Haryana in the capital on April 20 but the outcome of the negotiations wasn’t known. There had also been meeting of the two chief ministers with the Prime Minister, Kumar had told the bench.
Haryana has maintained that it can’t be made to wait for such a long time for construction of SYL canal. Any further delay in execution of the top court’s decree passed in 2002 would lead to people losing faith in the judicial system.
On the other hand, Punjab says the decree was not executable and the state required time to argue its case.
In February, it told the SC that the canal land returned to the landowners could not be recovered. It wanted a negotiated settlement between the two states with the help of the Centre.
The top court had in November 2016 declared the law passed by the Punjab Assembly in 2004 terminating the SYL canal water-sharing agreement with neighbouring states as unconstitutional. It had answered in the negative all four questions referred to it in a Presidential Reference.
The SC has repeatedly said it didn’t intend to revisit the facts and issues already adjudicated upon. “To my mind, the decree which has been passed has to be executed. A decree passed by the Supreme Court should not be treated like a paper decree,” Justice Ghose had said.
The top court earlier told the Centre, Punjab and Haryana to finish their talks on the construction of the SYL canal “as soon as it can be”, saying it will decide the matter if negotiations remained unresolved.
