SYL: SC denies urgent hearing on plea against Punjab CM, Dy CM

The Supreme Court today refused to grant urgent hearing to a fresh plea seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab for their alleged statements against the verdict in the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal water sharing agreement.
A five judge constitution bench had recently termed as "unconstitutional" the 2004 Punjab law which terminated the SYL water pact, saying the state cannot "unilaterally" terminate it or legislate to "nullify" the verdict of the highest court.
A bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice D Y Chandrachud today told lawyer Rakesh Dahiya, who sought urgent listing of a criminal contempt petition, that the plea would come up in due course.

The plea, which was filed by one Satbir Hooda, a resident of Rohtak in Haryana who runs an NGO, alleged that Prakash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal, Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab respectively, have made statements that the apex court verdict in the case will not be allowed to be implemented.
"This constitutes the offence of criminal contempt," the lawyer said.
In its verdict, the apex court recently responded in the "negative" to all the four questions referred to it for the opinion by then President APJ Abdul Kalam on the validity of the law passed by then Punjab government-led by Captain Amrinder Singh to nullify the court verdicts and unilaterally terminating the almost three-dacade old SYL water sharing agreement.

The court had issued notice to Punjab on Haryana's plea

seeking enforcement of the apex court verdicts and appointment of the receivers to ensure that the project land in Punjab remained intact.
The controversial 1981 water-sharing agreement came into being after Haryana was carved out of Punjab in 1966.
For effective allocation of water, SYL canal link was conceptualised and both the states were required to construct their portions within their territories.
Haryana constructed the portion of SYL canal in its territory. However, Punjab after initial work, stopped the work, leading to spate of litigations.
In 2004, the Congress government of the state came out with the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act with an intention to terminate the 1981 agreement and all other pacts relating to sharing of waters of rivers Ravi and Beas.

The apex court had first decreed the suit of Haryana in 2002 asking Punjab to honour its commitments with regard to water sharing in the case.
Punjab challenged the verdict by filing an original suit which was rejected in 2004 by the Supreme Court which asked the Centre to take over the remaining infrastructural work of the SYL canal project.