SC Questions Maintainability of Telangana’s Plea Against AP’s Polavaram-Nallamalla Sagar Link Project

A division bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi heard the writ petition in New Delhi on Monday as Telangana challenged the extension of financial assistance to AP for taking up the PNLP and also the grant of environmental clearance for the project and alleged that the Detailed Project Report violated the Central Water Commission’s recommendations.

The CJI said, “We are only on the issue of whether you should file a suit or a writ petition.”

The bench noted that the Central government was expediting the execution of Polavaram irrigation project and a committee had been constituted recently to consider issues of water sharing between AP and TG.

The bench observed that the Polavaram project was a national project and nothing can be added or diverted or modified without prior permission from the Centre and a committee was set up and asked the petitioner of TG to represent the issue before it.

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi appearing for Telangana argued that the writ petition was maintainable stating that the issue was not confined to water dispute and did not fall under the purview of any tribunal under the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, 1956. He pointed out certain violations and prayed for grant of a stay on the project’s expansion. He further argued that the expansion of the project would aim at diverting excessive floodwaters from Telangana and was in violation of the award of Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal.

As the bench appeared to be unconvinced on the maintenability of the writ petition, the senior advocate asked for the matter to be listed after a week to consider the filing of a suit.

Meanwhile, the bench hinted at a possibility of directing the statutory committee to look into the issue in the present scenario.

Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi, Balbir Singh and Jaideep Gupta appearing for Andhra Pradesh submitted that the DPR was sanctioned only after taking into consideration the comments of other stakeholders like Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka and further submitted that Telangana deemed to have consented to the main project which commenced in 2004 by means of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. They noted that the petition was mala fide, the only object of it was to bring to the highest court of the land, the issue, which was with the central government.

Meanwhile, senior advocate Singhvi asked the bench to post the matter for Friday to seek instructions on two aspects: the committee’s powers to stay the project or to file a suit.

The CJI posted the matter for next hearing on January 12 and observed for considering mediation and said they would hear both the parties and advised them to come with a viable solution.

It may be mentioned that AP called for bids to take up PNLP and is yet to finalise the bids.