Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 19: In a major development, the Attorney General of India, Goolam E Vahanvati has given green signal to the Jammu and Kashmir Government to go ahead with the construction of Ravi Canal from Basantpur up to the inflow of Ranjit Sagar dam reservoir to lift water for irrigating 1.33 lakh acres of land in three districts of Jammu province. The Attorney General has also expressed serious concern over denial of due share of Ravi river water to the State for several years.
The Attorney General of India was approached by the Law Department in the month of February this year as per the decision of the State Cabinet dated December 17, 2012 to seek legal opinion on the construction of Ravi Canal from Basantpur and lifting of water from upstream of Ranjit Sagar dam in view of abrogation of all the agreements regarding sharing of water by the Punjab Government.
Highly placed sources told EXCELSIOR that after detailed analysis of the entire record furnished by the Jammu and Kashmir Government and seeking certain clarifications from the Advocate General M I Qaidri and Chief Engineer RTIC Varinder Badyal on certain technical points recently, the Attorney General of India endorsed the decision of the Jammu and Kashmir Government to lift water from upstream of Ranjit Sagar dam.
“The Attorney General was surprised over the move of the State Government to seek his opinion despite being legally entitled to construct canal and lift water from upstream of Ranjit Sagar dam”, sources said, adding “Mr Vahanvati told the Advocate General and Chief Engineer RTIC that nobody can stop the Jammu and Kashmir Government to go ahead with the project”.
In his written opinion furnished to the State Government, the Attorney General has said, “I agree with the conclusion drawn by the former Chief Justice of India, Justice V N Khare and former Solicitor General of India, Amrinder Saran that there is no legal hurdle in construction of balanced portion of canal and lifting of water by J&K Government from upstream of Ranjit Sagar dam. But my decision is based on different grounds”.
“No doubt, the Punjab Government unilaterally abrogated all the agreements with other States on Ravi river water by enacting Punjab Termination of Agreements Act in 2004 but it cannot scrap the Union Government decision of 1955 whereby the share of Ravi and Beas rivers was fixed for different States including Jammu and Kashmir. Punjab has terminated its own agreements but not that of Government of India”, sources said quoting observations of the Attorney General.
“While holding J&K fully entitled to lift water from the upstream of Ranjit Sagar dam, the Attorney General has stated that State is free to go ahead with the project, which cannot be objected to by the Punjab Government legally”, sources disclosed, adding “the Attorney General has also expressed serious concern over the denial of due share of Ravi water to Jammu and Kashmir during such a long period. It is unfortunate that the State has been deprived of rightful claim without any legal ground”.
The necessity to obtain legal opinion from Attorney General of India was felt by the State Cabinet in view of divergent views of State Advocate General, former Chief Justice of India, Justice V N Khare and former Solicitor General of India, Amrinder Saran, who were approached by the PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Department before conceiving the project.
Though the Planning and Development Department had given its concurrence to the construction of project and even released Rs 20 crore as advance on the basis of legal opinion given by the former Chief Justice of India and former Solicitor General of India, the Finance Department, however, refused to give approval on the ground that in case of any legal hurdle from the Punjab Government the fate of Rs 250 crore worth project would hang in balance.
The project assumes great significance in view of the fact that it will irrigate nearly 1.33 lakh acres of land in three districts of Jammu province for which 82 kilometer canal and 500 kilometer tributaries were constructed 30 years back. Besides, another important aspect is that the project also has the potential to produce nearly 20 MW of power for the State.
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