Courts alone are not the answer to every dispute, says former judge of Punjab HC
Former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court K. Kannan, on Wednesday said that courts are not really the answer to every dispute.
Participating in a discussion on the recentlylaunched book Cauvery – A Long-winded Dispute,
The Hindu
in 1806. Photographs, portraying the involvement of a large number of workers during the construction of dams, bonhomie between Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka M.G.Ramachandran and Ramakrishna Hegde and the mood of anger during a bandh, had been carefully chosen. The Cauvery was not just about water, people were emotionally connected to it.
Recalling what former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said about the river dispute: Tamil Nadu is not the drainage canal for Karnataka, Mr. Kannan explained about the lower riparian State’s right over the river water, as the land under cultivation had always been larger here in Tamil Nadu.
Expressing concern over the ecological imbalance in the river basin, Mr. Ramakrishnan said the issue of denudation of vegetation in the basin over the years, indiscriminate pollution and excessive mining of river sand had to be addressed e¥ectively and in these matters, there was no con¦ict between the States.
Matter of concern
P.R.Pandian, president, Coordination Committee of All Farmers’ Associations, V. Sathyanaranan, General Secretary, Consortium of Cauvery Delta Farmers and K.V. Elnkeeran, president, Federation of Farmers’ Organisations in the Delta, said their main concern was that the issue should not be politicised and that they were always willing for discussions with their Karnataka counterpart. PII’s Director, Sashi Nair, said that the Cauvery dispute had been going on for many years now and it was a sensitive issue. Mediation may be the best way forward.