New Delhi: Even as the Supreme Court is to take up for the hearing on Monday the case relating to Mullaiperiyar dam dispute, Tamil Nadu has filed a fresh affidavit accusing Kerala of politicising the matter by making various statements.

The rejoinder affidavit said, "The frequent visits [to the dam] made by various representatives of the Government of Kerala, its officers and of the media from Kerala are only an attempt to politicise the matter."

Interim relief

On September 25 the suit filed by Tamil Nadu challenging the Kerala Irrigation and Water Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2006, enacted to prevent raising the water level beyond 136 feet, came up for hearing on the question of interim relief. On that day, the court passed a brief order saying, "The two State governments independently or with the intervention of the Union of India may try to sort out, if possible, the dispute" and the matter was adjourned. While the meeting between the Chief Ministers of two States is scheduled for November 29, the case comes up on Monday for hearing when Tamil Nadu is expected to apprise the court of the recent developments.

In its affidavit, Tamil Nadu maintained that its rights under the original agreement had crystallised into a Supreme Court decree and Kerala was not entitled to take away the fruits of the said decree by passing the impugned Act, which was clearly ultra vires the Constitution. It described as untenable the Kerala's contention that Tamil Nadu had no right to store the water and the Periyar was an intra-state river.

Tamil Nadu was of the view that under the federal Constitution, mutual and reciprocal rights and obligations of the States might be sorted out and crystallised by the States concerned by understandings and agreements. "Once they are so settled by agreements, such vinculum cannot be destroyed by the unilateral act of one party alone," it said.

On Kerala's contention on submergence, Tamil Nadu said, "Whatever land that will get submerged at the storage level of 155 feet above the deepest point of the bed does not extend beyond the lands leased to Tamil Nadu and is comprehended within the extent of the land permissible to be submerged."

It asserted that the safety of the dam would not be affected in anyway by raising the water level up to 142 ft.

The impugned Act was an attempt to subvert the Supreme Court judgment. and was clearly unconstitutional, Tamil Nadu said and prayed for an interim stay of its operation insofar as it affected the State's rights, it said.

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