Reviving the idea

The passing observation of the President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on the eve of Independence day 2002, set the momentum for interlinking of rivers, hitherto a dormant idea. This prompted one advocate, Ranjit Kumar, to attach the copy of Kalam's speech with a Public Interest Litigation which he had filed for the cleaning of Yamuna. Thus in August 2002 for the first time, the issue came up in the Supreme Court. Justice B. N. Kirpal, the then Chief Justice of India who was heading the bench responded so enthusiastically that he converted the PIL for cleaning

of the Yamuna into an independent writ petition and issued notices to the Centre and the States for interlinking of rivers.

When the matter came up again on 31 October 2002 , only the Centre and Tamil Nadu endorsed the Court's initiative. The absence of response from all but one State did not deter justice Kirpal and other Judges from pursuing the task which they took with missionary zeal. On the contrary, the learned judges ruled that in the absence of affidavits from other States, the assumption was clearly that they do not oppose the plan made in the Writ Petition and there is consensus among all of them that there should be inter-linking of rivers in India .

The order passed on 31 October 2002 formed the basis on which the Centre set up a high powered Task Force under Mr. Suresh Prabhu, former Union Minister of Power. The irony is that the very order that presumed an all-India consensus on the subject went on record to suggest how the Task Force would go into bringing consensus among the States.

Another irony about this far-reaching order is that there is no mention of the 10 year deadline, though the deadline is presented as part of the project. Justice Kirpal was cautious enough not to put the deadline in writing lest it raise delicate Constitutional questions of the Court's jurisdiction in the realm of executive policy.