Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Mullaiperiyar case: SC allows transfer of petitions

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI April 8. The Supreme Court today allowed transfer to itself of a bunch of petitions relating to the issue of raising the water level in the Mullaiperiyar dam in Kerala from 136 ft to 142 ft in the first stage and later up to 152 ft.A three-Judge Bench, headed by Justice G.B. Pattanaik, allowed the transfer of the petitions filed by the Janata Party President, Subramanian Swamy, and the Tamil Nadu Government pending in the Madras High Court and a bunch of petitions pending in the Kerala High Court on the same issue.

The Bench also directed that a PIL filed by the Mullaiperiyar Environmental Protection Forum, Thekkady, Kerala in the apex court in September last against raising the water level beyond 136 ft be tagged on with the transfer petitions. The Bench while directing all the petitions to be listed in August, observed that the transfer would not affect the rights of the Kerala Government to question the maintainability of these petitions.

The Centre, which accepted an expert committee report, in an affidavit said that the water level of the dam be raised initially up to 142 ft. It also said that strengthening measures suggested by the Central Water Commission and recommended by the expert committee were necessary for the safety of the dam and the Tamil Nadu Government should be allowed by the Kerala Government to execute the strengthening measures at the earliest.

In its response, the Tamil Nadu Government urged the court to issue appropriate directions to the Centre and Kerala Government for implementing the findings of the expert committee and to permit the State to raise the water level up to 142 ft as an interim measure. Tamil Nadu also rejected the contention of Kerala that there would be ecological consequences because of the raising of water level beyond 136 ft. It said the proposed increase in the water level would not affect the tiger reserve in any way and the apprehensions of Kerala were unfounded.

However, in its response, Kerala urged the court to reject the expert committee's "unilateral'' report as the concerns expressed by the State were not duly taken into account by the committee. It wanted a detailed study conducted by a fresh team on the unpredictable impacts of the seismic tremors experienced in the State last year especially in the dam area.

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