New Delhi: The Biju Janata Dal has accused the Centre of abandoning neutrality on Orissa’s dispute with Chhattisgarh over the sharing of Mahanadi waters and sought an urgent LS debate on setting up a tribunal.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour Wednesday, BJD leader Bhartruhari Mahtab alleged that the BJP-led Union government had gone back on its word given a year ago to appoint a tribunal on the Mahanadi dispute.
Mahtab said the Centre had conveyed to the Supreme Court that no tribunal would be set up to resolve the Mahanadi dispute between Orissa and Chhattisgarh.
“The neutrality of the Centre has been compromised not only in government, but in the SC also. This is a fit case for an adjournment motion,” he said after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan rejected an adjournment motion on the issue.
When Mahtab asked the Speaker to reconsider her decision, Sumitra said she knows it was an important issue but would consider other applications by the BJD like a “calling attention motion” to discuss the matter. Trinamool MPs supported the BJD. Mahtab said that in reply to a Parliament question, the Union Water Resources Ministry had said a draft Cabinet note was ready and the tribunal would be set up. He also cited the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act which mandates the Centre to set up a tribunal within a year after receiving a complaint from the state. Mahtab said the Centre didn’t have powers to override the legislation and one year had lapsed on November 19.
On the Centre’s argument that a pending Bill mandates a single permanent tribunal for river disputes, Mahtab said, “A tribunal if set up can be later subsumed when the single tribunal law comes into effect.”
PNN
