NEW DELHI: A five-judge Constitution Bench on Monday fixed January 19 to start hearing the arguments on the intransigent Mullaperiyar dispute between Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Bench comprising Justice D K Jain, Justice B Sudershan Reddy, Justice Mukundakam Sharma, Justice R M Lodha and Justice Deepak Verma briefly heard senior counsel K Parasaran appearing for Tamil Nadu and senior counsel Harish Salve for Kerala before fixing the date.
It was on November 10 that a threejudge Bench referred the dispute between the neighbouring states over the Mullaperiyar dam to a five-judge Constitution Bench.
On that day Kerala told a Bench comprising Justice D K Jain, Justice Mukundakam Sharma and Justice R M Lodha that the judgment passed by the apex court in the year 2006 was without jurisdiction.
It said that any dispute between two States on any constitutional question had to be decided by the Supreme Court under Article 131 only. But the judgment rendered in 2006 was on an Article 32 petition, viz a writ petition.
Hence it was not legal and was without jurisdiction, Kerala contended.
After consulting the counsel for Tamil Nadu, the Bench referred the argument put forward by Kerala to a Cons t i tution Bench. On Monday the Constitution Bench headed by Justice Jain requested the counsel of both states to summarise the arguments because they had already gone on for a long time before the three-judge Bench.
Justice Lodha humorously remarked that the judges had been punished with hearing and hearing about Mullaperiyar.