NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain the Delhi Jal Board's plea against the Haryana government in connection with the shortage of water supply to the city and asked it to approach the Upper Yamuna River Board.
The three-judge bench of Justice Nageswara Rao, Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Ramasubramanian granted liberty to the DJB to approach the Upper Yamuna River Board, with their prayer relating to the allocation of water to Delhi and asked the board to consider the representation made by the DJB, clarifying that the top court is not expressing any opinion on merits of the case.
The observations were made by the top court during the hearing of an application by the DJB seeking directions to the Punjab and Haryana governments to stop the discharge of untreated pollutants causing a rise of ammonia levels into the Yamuna river, and also ensure there is enough supply of water from Haryana side to the national capital.
The DJB has maintained that shortage in the water supply may affect supply to hospitals and had urged the top court to fix a specific timeline in which the board may decide their grievance, preferably within 10 days, as beyond that, there may be a difficulty.
During the hearing, the bench noted that the DJB should go to the monitoring body and make a request to it. "You can’t keep coming here and telling us there is no water in Delhi. You asked us to appoint a committee, and we did. The ground reality appears to be different," the bench observed.
Meanwhile, the DJB ordered officials on Thursday to ensure that there was no shortage of drinking water in hospitals treating coronavirus patients.