Water-sharing row: High court notice on Punjab plea for recalling May 6 order
High court notice to Centre, Haryana and BBMB on Punjab’s petition seeking recall of order that directs state to release additional 4,500 cusecs of water from Bhakra dam.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday sought response from the Centre, the Haryana government and the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) on a plea of the Punjab government, seeking recall of a May 6 order that directed the state to allow the release of additional 4,500 cusecs of water to neighbouring Haryana from the Bhakra dam.
After the hearing on Wednesday, former advocate general and senior advocate Gurminder Singh, who appeared for Punjab, said, “The court has issued notice for May 20.”
The plea, filed on Monday, contended that the May 6 order is “illegal as the court was misled into believing” that the meeting held under the chairmanship of the Union home secretary on May 2 was conducted under Rule 7 of the 1974 rules, which requires a reference made by the (BBMB) chairman on the water-sharing issue.
“The direction in question was passed on account of concealment of material facts by non-applicant parties in the writ petition who have failed to bring true and correct facts to the notice of the court,” it claimed.
On May 6, the high court directed Punjab not to interfere with the functioning of BBMB and abide by the Union home secretary’s May 2 decision which asked the board to release additional 4,500 cusecs of water to Haryana.
The Punjab government has now contended that the Union power secretary is the competent authority to deal with disputes around water sharing under the BBMB Act, and not the Union home secretary. The formal minutes of the May 2 meeting were not recorded, and only a press note was produced which, it said, formed the basis of the “misleading information” that led to the court order of May 6.
The May 6 order had come on a BBMB plea seeking the withdrawal of additional police deployment at Nangal, which it said was “illegal and unconstitutional”, and argued that it was being prevented from complying with the Centre’s directions.
The controversy erupted on April 28 when the Haryana government’s demand for additional water from the Bhakra dam was approved by the BBMB despite opposition from Punjab. The Punjab government refused to accept the decision and deployed police at Nangal dam, 13km downstream from Bhakra, to stop the additional water release. The Union home ministry stepped in on May 2 and directed that additional water be released to Haryana. However, the BBMB said that the order could not be complied with as Punjab Police prevented board officials from discharging their duties.
Punjab has said that Haryana has already overdrawn its water quota and was “demanding irrigation water under the guise of drinking needs”.
The additional water could not be released even after the high court intervention of May 6. On May 9, BBMB chairman Manoj Tripathi, in an affidavit, told the high court that board officials were prevented by Punjab Police from releasing the water. This led to the high court asking the Punjab DGP and chief secretary to submit names of these officials and reiterating that additional water be released to Haryana. In response to the affidavit filed by the chairman, the Punjab government has filed another application alleging that Tripathi “knowingly/intentionally submitted a false affidavit before the court on May 9” and demanded contempt proceedings against him for submitting a false affidavit. This application is yet to be taken up by the court.
The BBMB was established by the Union power ministry in 1966 under Section 79 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, which regulates water distribution from Bhakra, Nangal, Pong, and Ranjit Sagar dams between Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan.
