Form unified agency for Kashmir relief operation: SC

The Supreme Court Friday asked the government to consider setting up a unified agency to coordinate the relief, rescue and rehabilitation operation in Jammu and Kashmir hit by floods that have left lakhs of people marooned.

The court was hearing two petitions, one a PIL by a person Vasundhra Pathak Masoodi and the other by the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party who had urged the court to intervene for the immediate rescue, relief and rehabilitation of the lakhs of people affected by the floods.

Noting that it was in no doubt that the government was concerned about the calamity that had affected a large number of people in J&K, the apex court bench of Chief Justice R.M.Lodha, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman said, "The Government of India may also consider forming a Unified Agency for proper coordination of rescue, relief and rehabilitation operations."

The court said, "It goes without saying that supply of food, drinking water, medicines, fuel and other essential supplies deserve top-most priority and so also the restoration of communication and provision for health-care facilities."

"After all, lives of people who are affected by such disaster have to be saved," the court said.

Directing the listing of the matter Sep 15, the court said the high court should start functioning forthwith as whatever may be the extent of a calamity the constitutional bodies must be seen functioning even if in a symbolic form.

Saying that he was concerned about the functioning of the high court which has come to a standstill, Chief Justice Lodha said that he had spoken to the Chief Justice of the high court on this count.

As one of the petitioners informed the court that the high court itself was flooded with water, Chief Justice Lodha said the high court could function from a two-room accommodation or a guest house.

"What is important is not the address of the place from where the high court is functioning but (the fact) that the constitutional functionaries are working" even in such adversities, underlined Chief Justice Lodha.

Assuring the court that he understood the spirit of what the court was driving at, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that he would get in touch with the army chief and other authorities so that the high court is provided with an alternate place to commence its working.

However, Rohatgi resisted the averments by the petitioners and asserted that the armed forces were doing the best that is humanly possible. The Chief of the Army Staff General Dalbir Singh Suhag was personally monitoring the operations. He said that a committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was overseeing and coordinating the rescue and relief operations.

Informing the court that the armed forces were operating in the most difficult circumstances, Rohatgi said that at places stones were pelted at them by the locals.

The petitioners said that though the armed forces have done commendable work in rescue operations but they felt that the current rescue operations were too inadequate for such a disaster.