The Hindu : Tamil Nadu accords primacy to rule of law: Jayalalithaa

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 10, 2002

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National

Tamil Nadu accords primacy to rule of law: Jayalalithaa

With reference to the editorial, ``Dangers of Defiance'', published on October 7, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, writes:

"I wish to point out to you that Tamil Nadu has always accorded primacy to the Supreme Court, the Cauvery River Authority and the rule of law, while it is Karnataka that has repeatedly subverted justice at every forum that Tamil Nadu has gone to for redressal. If the apex court ordered the release of 1.24 tmcft of water daily to the farmers of Tamil Nadu, the ``jostling'' of the Prime Minister to whittle it down to 0.8 tmcft was at Karnataka's behest. We had petitioned and importuned the Cauvery River Authority for four long years and only four meetings were held by the Government of India in these four years, whereas the hustling of the Prime Minister by Karnataka when the Supreme Court ordered the release of 1.25 tmcft of water to Tamil Nadu on a daily basis yielded an emergency meeting of the Cauvery River Authority and they achieved a reduction of the release to 0.8 tmcft through the Cauvery River Authority. Even this direction has now been flouted by them. I wish to emphasise that Tamil Nadu has never ceased to cooperate with the Cauvery River Authority for conflict resolutions even when it took an arbitrary and pre-meditated stand to whittle down what the Supreme Court awarded to Tamil Nadu. It is Tamil Nadu that has been urging the Prime Minister as the aggrieved State to convene meetings of the Cauvery River Authority. After assuming charge as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, I had written to the Prime Minister on August 23, 2001, to convene the meeting of the Cauvery Monitoring Committee and on September 14, 2001, to convene the meeting of the Cauvery River Authority. This was followed by letters from my predecessor O. Panneerselvam on December 28, 2001, and letters from me on June 1, 2002, and June 11, 2002. I had also personally met the Prime Minister at New Delhi on June 12, 2002, when a memorandum was presented highlighting the need to convene the meeting of the Cauvery River Authority.

It may be recalled that the fourth meeting of the Cauvery River Authority was convened on August 27, 2002, based on the directions given by the Supreme Court, while hearing the Interlocutory application filed by the Government of Tamil Nadu. Even for the fifth meeting of the Cauvery River Authority, which was convened on September 8, 2002, with undue haste at the behest of Karnataka, though I was indisposed, I deputed the Minister for Finance, C. Ponnaiyan, to attend the meeting. Tamil Nadu has attended meetings of the Cauvery Monitoring Committee whenever they were convened. Our inability to attend the meeting convened on September 24, 2002, was conveyed to the Government of India, making it clear that since the matter was sub-judice, Tamil Nadu would not be able to participate in the meeting. When the Supreme Court directed the Cauvery Monitoring Committee on September 30, 2002, to (visit) Mettur and other Delta areas, we made all arrangements for the visit of the committee to Mettur and other Delta areas and to complete its assessment of the ground. We only wish that the Cauvery River Authority and the Prime Minister had played the role of a just and strong mediator that the apex court expected of them in according them primacy.

It is, however, unfortunate that The Hindu has, even at this juncture, chosen to find fault with Tamil Nadu and cannot bring itself to chastise Karnataka which has been flouting the directions of the Cauvery River Authority and the orders of the Supreme Court with impunity. Tamil Nadu will continue to maintain law and order unlike Karnataka, which is using the law and order situation prevailing there as a pretext for non-implementation of the orders of the Cauvery River Authority and the Supreme Court.

As the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, I am totally committed to the cause of lakhs of farmers of the Thanjavur Delta for whom the Cauvery is a lifeline and will cooperate with any institution that will give us justice. But I wish to make it clear that cooperation with the Cauvery River Authority does not mean that we will compromise the rights of our farmers for their rightful share of the Cauvery water in the face of agitational tactics by Karnataka or arm-twisting by the Government of India. We will continue to seek justice from the Supreme Court in which we repose faith and we are confident that the Supreme Court will render justice to Tamil Nadu".

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