The Madras High Court held a special sitting on Tuesday — despite it being the last day of the Deepavali holidays — and sought to know the number of permissions granted in the last 10 years for sinking borewells and tubewells in the State, the number of drilling agencies registered with the government, how many abandoned borewells there were across the State and the penal action taken against individuals for violating the 2009 Supreme Court guidelines on handling borewells.
Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and N. Seshasayee wanted the details to be submitted by November 21. The interim order was passed on an urgent public interest litigation petition filed by V. Ponraj, former Director (Technology Interface) at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, seeking the effective implementation of the Supreme Court guidelines and the consequent rules that were framed in 2015.
The judges expressed their displeasure over government officials themselves not being aware of the guidelines and even the consequent rules framed by the State government in 2015. Though the Supreme Court had ordered that every landowner wanting to sink a borewell should make an application 15 days in advance and obtain necessary permission from the officials concerned, no such time period had been specified in the 2015 rules, the judges pointed out.
“Unless we, as citizens, are prepared for a change in our outlook, we are going to assemble like this forever. Do we really require a dead body every time to remind us of our duties and responsibilities? It is not just Sujith’s parents but the entire nation has lost a child,” Justice Seshasayee said.
In his submission, Government Pleader V. Jayaprakash Narayan said the borewell in which Sujith fell had been sunk on land owned by the child’s grandfather Devaraj and three other relatives. The borewell had been sunk for 610 feet and was abandoned seven years ago. Though the landowners had closed it with mud, it appeared to have caved in over the years due to rain and other natural causes. The judges appealed to the media, especially television channels, to allocate a few minutes of their prime time slots to create awareness among the people about court orders and statutory regulations governing issues such as illegal flex boards and abandoned borewells.
