NBA condemns court order, to fight to the finish

New Delhi, May 8 (UNI) Expressing disappointment over the Supreme Court's refusal to stay construction work to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam from 110 m to 121.92 m till July 7 the Narmada Bachao Andolan today said they had been left with no other alternative than to launch a "fight to the finish".

Describing the apex court's statement that ''we are not inclined to stop the construction at present'' as a "cruel one'', NBA chief Medha Patkar said,''the Dam that is to damn and devastate 35000 and more families now has the court's sanction, which is now to become a death sentence for this most ancient valley and the civilisation.'' ''The Court's verdict is against the rights of the oustees who are protected by Article 21 of the Constitution. The verdict shows an anti-poor perspective. Development will now have not only an inhuman but also a brutal face and force,''Ms Patkar told newspersons here.

Alleging that the Court judgement was "a clear contempt of its own judgements earlier", Ms Patkar said,''the Court has forgotten its own commitments to the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award, both in letter and spirit, and also the Constitutional right to life. Thus, the Court has not played fair, nor respected the Cosntitution.

In this context, she said the Court order was a clear contravention of its earlier judgement which said that relief and rehabilitation work shall be completed one year prior to the start of construction to raise the height of the dam. The court will consider a report by fomer CAG V K Shunglu on relief and rehabilitation measures on July 7.

''The Supreme Court has hidden behind an unbelievable reason disputed facts to postpone the decision on the raising of the dam height while ignoring the 'undisputed' facts presented by all the parties including the governments on incomplete rehabilitation. It has also bypassed its own 'unchallenged verdicts'. When it became clear to every committee that visited the Valley before World Bank's, Union of India's to that of Members of Parliament that injustice was being imposed, and records and reports were flawed, the Court couldn't and didn't take the responsible task of investigation into the jumbling of not figures, but of families in thousands, nor a timely conclusion,''Ms Patkar said.

''By tossing responsibility between themselves, the Apex court and the UPA Government have proved to be in alliance, favouring Modi's violent ways and means to development, and not Gandhi's Antyodaya', ''she said.

Lashing out at the Centre, she said,''the UPA government has decided and conveyed to the country that in this globalised, liberalised era, development decisions will be made by the multinationals to the corporate interests with political distortion of the truth, all of which is obviously dominant in Sardar Sarovar and not mass-rooted democracy or the scientific or rational analysis of social, environmental and economic conditions.'' Stating that the Court order had left the NBA with no other alternative that to intensify its struggle to obtain justice for the Oustees, Ms Patkar said,'' ''The Court order has come to us as a shock. The injustice meted to the people of Narmada cannot be forgotten, who have been fighting for two decades. The decision will result in allowing the Dam and Destruction to be a 'fait accompli'. We will fight to the finish,''she said.

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