The reference of the dispute to the Supreme Court, though by common consent of both states, was not a correct decision from the point of view of Punjab. The action of the successor Chief Minister, Darbara Singh, to withdraw the case from the Supreme Court was a very wise decision, first because the river water dispute, according to Article 262(2) of the Indian Constitution and clause 11 of the Inter State River Waters Dispute Act, 1956(ISRWDA), is outside the jurisdiction of the courts. Second, an adverse decision as the one in the case of the SYL canal would have put Punjab in a very awkward situation.

After rejection of the various subsequent awards and agreements by one or both governments, the latest in the matter was the Rajiv-Longowal agreement of July, 1985. This provided that (I) the quantum of water being received by the states as on 1.7.85, would not be reduced; and (ii) quantum of remaining water would be determined by a Tribunal to be appointed under the ISRWDA and its distribution among the claimant states would also be decided by the said Tribunal.

Whereas the first provision has been and is unquestionable, the second provision led Punjab into a catch. First, it was wrong and harmful for Punjab to accept that the Ravi water was disputable and distributable. Second, a Tribunal of the type agreed, is basically unconstitutional and outside the ambit of law. Such a Tribunal clause 11 of the Act, can be set up only for an inter-state-river or a river-valley. The Ravi is not an inter-state river so far as Haryana and Rajasthan are concerned, nor can Haryana, by any stretch of imagination, be termed as a part of the Ravi basin according to the standard system of demarcating basin areas.

Thus, the Tribunal (Eradi Tribunal) is an illegal entity and its award has no legal force or authority. This is apart from the fact that the Eradi award is full of wrong and unjustified assumptions and facts, leading to an unjustified, unfair and unacceptable award.

The SYL canal cannot be de-linked from the resolution of the river waters dispute between Punjab & Haryana and its construction without resolving the waters dispute would be an unwise act and unnecessary waste of a huge block of money.

HARBANS SINGH, ex-Chairman, PSEB, Chandigarh

Jurisdiction: Mr Anupam Gupta in his legal comments, “SYL canal: Supreme Court acts beyond jurisdiction” (Feb 4) has rightly observed that the apex court’s time-bound direction “has the potential to set the Thames, nay Ravi and Beas, on fire”. Punjab has so far not discovered any mineral wealth and the water of the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas, which is the only natural wealth Punjab possesses, is an issue of life and death for the farmers of Punjab who consider it as theirs by right.

Article 262 of the Constitution of India makes it clear that Parliament may by law oust the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India in case of any inter-state rivers water dispute and in exercise of this power. “The Water Disputes Act 1956” has been enacted by Parliament. But the difficulty is that each branch of the constitutional system, these days, is out to expand the scope of its powers forgetting that when a star crosses its orbit, it is bound to crash.

In explaining the scope of Article 262, the Joint Parliamentary Committee in its report had accepted the riperian principle w.r.t. river waters by observing that “each province has complete powers over water supplies within the province without any regard, whatsoever, to the interests of the neighbouring provinces...”

The Eradi Commission also violated the terms of the Rajiv-Longowal accord, paragraphs 9 (1) and 9 (2) of which constituted its terms of reference, when during verification of claims instead of confining the scope of its enquiry to use of water by each State on 1.7.1985, the commission included in its verification the pre-partition use of the Ravi-Beas waters to Punjab and excluded the surplus waters which Haryana had been using so far from the Yamuna.

A study of militancy in Punjab reveals that rural discontent in Punjab has a potential to take the form of “Sikh struggle” against the government in Delhi because the farmers in Punjab are largely Sikhs who may misinterpret digging of the SYL canal to carry water of Punjab rivers as communal injustice. One must learn from past mistakes and now allow them to be repeated.