The Madras High Court Bench in Madurai on Tuesday declined to go into the merits of a case over alleged encroachments in the Mullaperiyar dam area and seeking protection for PWD engineers who were involved in the maintenance of the dam, on the basis that the Supreme Court has been seized of the matter and is handling the dam case.
Tamil Nadu Senior PWD engineers Association had filed a PIL seeking to remove the alleged illegal encroachments in the dam area and replace the Kerala police personnel with CRPF or CISF, and also post trained fire fighting personnel in the dam area based on what it said was report submitted by Intelligence Bureau in 2006.
The petitioner also sought direction to the Centre and State governments to provide adequate security to the Mullaperiyar dam, Tamil Nadu PWD engineers involved in the maintenance of the dam, their family members, tourists from Tamil Nadu and Ayappa devotees going to Sabarimala from Tamil Nadu.
When the matter came up for hearing before the Bench comprising Justice Chitra Venkataraman and Justice R Karuppiah, the petitioner's counsel sought an urgent intervention of the court.
However, Justice Chitra Venkataraman said, "the Supreme Court is seized of the matter. The Court-appointed committee also is shortly to submit its report on the dam issue". In such a scenario, "how can this court interfere in the matter?" she asked.
The petitioner's counsel said the High Court had previously handled matters that were pending in the Supreme Court, such as the cases over police firing in Paramakudi in Ramanathapuram district and the tradional 'Jallikattu' (taming the bull) event.
Pointing out a counter affidavit filed by the government of Kerala, Justice Chitra said the subject matter of the petition "is effectively seized of by the Supreme Court of India and the High Power Committee constituted by it". If at all the petitioner had any grievance, the remedy was available to the petitioner to approach the High Power Committee or the Supreme Court wherein the issues relating to Mullaperiyar dam are pending consideration, she said.
Not accepting to the plea of the petitioner to deploy Central security forces, Justice Chitra pointed that the Tamil Nadu government already had moved the Supreme Court seeking to replace the Kerala police with Central forces in the dam area. By order dated on December 15, 2011, the Supreme Court also recorded the undertaking given by the senior counsel of the state of Kerala on the protection of the dam, she said.
However, the petitioner's counsel insisted the matter be heard. Deferring the matter after four weeks, she said, "We are not taking side with anyone. In situation like this where Supreme Court is seized of the matter.. we would not like to order anything in the matter. Solution is not going to be at the distant future".
In the meantime, the state of Tamil Nadu and the union government were directed to file responses.
Tamil Nadu and Kerala are locked in a dispute over raising the storage capacity of the Mullaperiyar dam. While Kerala claims that the 116-year-old reservoir is unsafe and should be replaced by a new dam, Tamil Nadu maintains that the present structure is "as good as new" after measures taken to strengthen the dam.
Comments