MADURAI
The Madras High Court Bench here on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation petition to restrain the State Government and Small Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) from supplying surface water from Tamirabarani to any of the industries, including co-packers of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, located at Industrial Growth Centre at Gangaikondan in Tirunelveli district.
A Division Bench of Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and P. Velmurugan rejected the plea made by C.M. Ragavan, a Tirunelveli-based political functionary, on the ground “that regulations on use of water was a very complex matter and therefore the High Court, in exercise of its writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, would lack expertise to express its view on the manner in which the authorities should take decisions...”
The judges recalled that the Supreme Court in Kuchchh Jal Sankat Nivaran Samiti’s case (2013) had held that a court would not step into and impose its views on the expertise or wisdom of the authorities who controlled and regulated water supply unless there were violations of rules and regulations. In the instant case, the petitioner had failed to point out any such violation warranting the court’s interference, they said.
“SIPCOT had been permitted by the Water Utilisation Committee to draw water and the order passed in favour of SIPCOT is not a rigid formula. The same fluctuates depending upon the inflow of water into the river. The quantum of inflow of water depends on various factors and how the water has to be utilised is best left to the decision of the authorities. In the given facts and circumstances, we find there is no arbitrariness in distribution of water,” the Division Bench observed.
The Bench led by Mr. Justice Sivagnanam also said another Division Bench of Justices A. Selvam and P. Kalaiyarasan had on March 2 dismissed a couple of similar PIL petitions to ban supply of Tamirabarani water to co-packers of PepsiCo and Coca Cola. Then, the judges had undertaken an elaborate exercise of examining the issue in detail and come to a conclusion that SIPCOT could not be restrained from drawing water from Tamirabarani and supplying it to the two industries.
The court had also taken into consideration the submission made on behalf of the State Government that around 5,000 mcft of surface water from Tamirabarani went waste into sea and that SIPCOT had been permitted to draw only a small fraction of surplus water. Further, it pointed out that the contract between the industries and SIPCOT contained a specific clause empowering the latter to stop supplying water to the industries if there was acute shortage of water.
