Mahanadi row: HC asks Centre, Odisha govt to get instruction

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court today asked the standing counsel of the state and the Centre to get instructions from their respective governments within ten days on a case filed along with a PIL over the recent Mahanadi river dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

Seeking judicial intervention into the dispute, Mahanadi Bachao Manch, which filed the PIL, in a separate miscellaneous case had alleged that there were claims and counter-claims by the two state governments over keeping the people in the loop about the projects of the Chhattsigarh government which are coming up in the upper basin of the river.

Not inclined to take up the PIL at this stage, a division bench of the HC headed by Chief Justice Vineet Saran nevertheless asked the standing counsel to be prepared with instructions from their respective governments on the prayer made in the miscellaneous petition.

The miscellaneous petition has pleaded in the high court that all the relevant communication made between the two state governments over the proposed projects on Mahanadi by the Chhattishgarh government be called.