The Supreme Court on Tuesday deftly deflected impassioned pleas relating to safety of Mullaperiyar dam saying its empowered committee headed by former CJI A S Anand was looking into the matter but sought responses from the Centre and Kerala government in two days on Tamil Nadu’s plea for deployment of Central Industrial Security Forces around the dam site for security purposes.
Both the Jayalalithaa government and the Oomen Chandy government withdrew their much publicized pleas from the SC — TN seeking to gag Kerala’s top politicians and officers from spreading alleged rumours about the safety of the dam and Kerala seeking a direction to reduce the water level in the dam from 136 ft to 120 ft.
If a constitution bench of Justices D K Jain, R M Lodha, Deepak Verma, C K Prasad and A R Dave was critical of Tamil Nadu breaching for 10 days the SC’s interim order directing that water level should not exceed 136 ft, it did not appreciate Kerala’s attempt to revive the issue when the empowered panel was mandated to look into the safey of the dam.Kerala had cited water level beyond 136 feet, incessant rains and frequent tremors for seeking a direction for lowering of the
water level height. The Tamil
Nadu government had said the water level was involuntarily breached marginally and that the low intensity tremors posed no threat to the dam
But the bench was unimpressed by the public posturing by both sides by issuing advertisements and giving public speeches when its high-powered committee was examining all issues relating to the dam, including the safety aspect.
It said, “The empowered committee headed by a former Chief Justice of India and comprising experts from both the states is inspecting the dam. They are on the job. They are not only seized of the dam safety issue but also the subsequent developments. If there had been any emergent situation of grave nature, then the committee would have given a report to the court. It has not done so. This means the situation is not that grave as is being projected by Kerala.”
The court told the state its contention that Kerala’s apprehensions were baseless and not correct since they had cited the breach in water level and the frequency of tremors. It also disapproved the advertisement issues by Jayalalithaa quoting court’s observations.
After settling frayed tempers, the court poured out its anguish on the way politics was being played these days. It said, “Court proceedings should not be used for political purpose. The process in courts is very sacred. It is not proper for a state government to issue such advertisement using the court proceedings as basis, then it is not proper.”
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