A Division Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Aravind Kumar, has refused to entertain the writ petition filed by M. Kodandaram Reddy, founder-president of the Telangana Jana Samiti, for a direction to the governments of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Maharashtra, and the Union of India, to treat the Godavari floods that had occurred in July 2022 as a national calamity, assess the loss incurred by the victims at the earliest, and pay them compensation, and prepare a manual for the management of the floods caused by the backwaters coming out of the barrages at Kaleshwaram and Polavaram projects.
“The petitioner is at liberty to approach the respective High Courts for issuance of writs to the governments concerned.”Supreme Court
Instead, the apex court gave Prof. Kodandaram the liberty to file writ petitions in the respective State High Courts, seeking the issuance of writs to the governments concerned under Article 226 of the Constitution, and did not make any comments on the merits of the case.
Prof. Kodandaram also appealed for the constitution of an enquiry commission headed by a retired High Court judge, along with experts, for assessing the damage in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra, for providing rehabilitation and resettlement to all the project-affected persons.
Besides, he stressed the need to enquire into the reasons for the recurrence of disasters along the banks of the Godavari after the construction of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme in Telangana and the cofferdam of the Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh.
Making a specific reference to the impact of floods in Andhra Pradesh, Prof. Kodandaram submitted, that apart from submergence of a large extent of the command area due to the Polavaram project, it (the floods) had adverse impact on the tribal areas in Bhadradri Kothagudem district of Telangana.
The Godavari floods in Andhra Pradesh had affected 3,48,815 people in July 2022, he said.
