NEW DELHI— On February 29, the Solicitor General of India, Ranjit Kumar, contended that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, resolution was illegal and outside of Punjab’s jurisdiction. This resolution cancelled all of Punjab’s pacts of sharing Punjab’s water with its neighboring states, in addition to building of a Satluj Yamuna Link canal that would provide water to neighboring states.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar said that the Punjab government has no right to nullify the verdicts addressed by Court in 2002 after thorough investigations. The court had earlier ordered Punjab to build the SYL canal, to provide 32 LAF more water to Haryana. In 2002, the review petition filed by the State of Punjab was dismissed by the Supreme Court on March 5, 2002, and the Union Government was instructed to construct the Punjab portion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal. Capt. Amarinder Singh, the Chief Minister of Punjab in 2004, however refused to allow work on the canal.
In 2004, when Captain Amarinder Singh led the Punjab government, a resolution named Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 was passed to annul the 1981 Indira Gandhi award and subsequent agreements relating to the distribution of Ravi-Beas waters among Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. The Punjab government had passed this resolution following the Supreme Court’s order to the central government to complete the Satluj-Yamuna Link Canal.
Commenting on the SYL canal, Capt. Amarinder Singh had earlier said, “We all have seen how the Satluj-Yamuna link canal issue had disturbed peace in Punjab, a state that barely has enough water for its own needs. Any effort to disturb the status quo can disturb the prevailing calm,” he said.
Due to the sensitivity of the current water dispute and the conditions in Haryana, the central government has urged the Supreme Court to defer the hearing of this case due to the current ongoing turmoil there due to the Jat agitation. The Haryana government however has petitioned the Supreme Court to make a decision quickly. The water dispute case has been pending in the court for more than 10 years.
Chief Minister Parkash Badal is expected to meet with his counterpart in Haryana to discuss the water deal. He has however clarified that Punjab “doesn’t have even a single water drop to spare”. “Punjab’s stand on the subject has been consistent, clear and categorical. And there can be no compromise on the rights of Punjab as a Riparian state,” Badal said in a statement earlier.
I guess we could form a sort of a new State by re unification to be called
” Great Punjab ”
modeled along the line of
“Great Britain “
The constituent parts of Great Britain are separate countries – Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England – which have their own national assemblies as well as a UK Parliament. Those assemblies have the power to set their own laws as can clearly be seen in Scotland which even has a Scottish Pound and education system and recently enjoyed a referendum to stay or leave the union. Still want the Sikhs in Punjab to enjoy such liberalism and freedom to express their identity? Didn’t think so.
Ok then
Let there be a round table discussion between the CM of all the four states
HP ,Haryana , J and K and Punjab .
IF Germany and Europe and USA can then so can we .
I think we all need to Resurrect Punjab to its original Glory by its
“REUNIFICATION”
Great idea. Let’s reunify as you want and therefore reconstitute the Khalsa Raj with the Sikhs ruling as they did when they last owned all these lands under the Sikh Empire when both Hindus and Muslims were very content to live under Sikh auspices.
The rule shall also be shared by all the communities .
Khalsa Raj means a rule by a Pure man and not necessary a Sikh man.
I wondered how long it would before you realised that you had accepted that SIkhs should rule again. Your RSS employers must have been horrified at the resurrection of Khalsa Raj that you had acceded to in your rush to ingratiate yourself. Khalsa and Sikh are synonymous and we have a clear historical precedent set by Maharajah Ranjit SIngh who was both a pious Sikh and a secular minded Sovereign as the two characteristics go together. Sikhs are not going to be ruled in their own homeland by non Sikhs and that includes the likes of Badal and anyone else who wears a turban and beard but abandons SIkh principles.
Answer is Reunification of all three states and may be even Jammu and other parts which want to be part of the “GREATER PUNJAB” or Punjab . Haryana or Himachal Pradesh.
No body is putting drugs and alcohol in the mouth of people of Punjab .
The parents of children ,Political leaders need to caution the children against the nefarious designs of Drug Cartels and Alcohol industry to destroy the youth of Punjab and there families .
‘No body is putting drugs and alcohol in the mouth of people of Punjab’?! You have the most heavily controlled border with Pakistan where the drugs are coming from – you don’t think the politicians and police are facilitating it?! Bring every Sikh regiment in Indian army back to Punjab and put them in charge of border of Punjab and Punjab will be free of drugs and illicit alcohol in a month – that is why it will never happen.
Also as you are not a Sikh ironically you may not be aware that when you say ‘Answer is Reunification of all three states and may be even Jammu’ you are going a long way to reconstitute the territories of Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s ‘Khalsa Raj’. Reviving memories and public awareness of his Sikh Empire will make it harder for the Hinduvta agenda to dilute and adulterate Sikh identity which draws a lot of its strength from its history as well as spiritual faith.
Is not the case that Haryana supply water to Delhi hence the recent tensions Delhi being without water. Haryana supply water to Delhi and punjab to Haryana – how does that make sense….. Punjab has already been divided to create Haryana and now they wish to make just let Punjab Dry, what they have not achieved by alcohol drugs killing sikhs – why not take water away from them that way they will simply die of thirst….. These Hindus have left no stone to be turned to bring us down…..whats next???
Disgusting tactics by disgusting people.
[…] http://www.sikh24.com/2016/03/04/central-government-challenges-legitimacy-of-punjab-termination-of-a… […]
https://www.facebook.com/balbir.singh.355
The only answer to this imbroglios is the reunification of Punjab ,Haryana and Himachal Patdesh.
If Germany’s ,Europe can re unite then so can we .
We must remember that all the lines on states ,Nation are man made .
Deeply cynical plan to dilute power of Sikhs by then saying Sikhs in Punjab are no longer the majority even within their own homeland.
Plus of course you create a legal technicality to get around the abuse of riparian law by saying ‘hey, look we are no longer diverting water from Punjab it is just being relocated within greater Punjab’. The Sikh homeland of Punjab would still be bereft of its water leading to further degradation of Sikh farmers lands. Also within this suddenly proposed ‘reunification’ what is going to be the language of PUnjab – is it still going to be Punjabi (which Punjabi Hindus abandoned to make Haryana in 1966) or will you make Hindi the language? Perhaps you will change the name of Punjab as well – after all by the time you are done with it won’t be land of five rivers but rather land of a couple of canals.
Europe Unification and Germany Re -Unification are land mark events in history for reconciliation between traditional foes of WW-2 vintage.
By Reunification we can avoid the water conflict and focus on more positive and futuristic things like “SPACE EXPLORATION”.
Conflicts only feed the MIC and are human Guzzlers.
As for Language it could be both Punjabi and Hindi in the Joint state .
let us not become Language Extremist .
The Name the joint state could be all four like
Greater Punjab , Punjab . Haryana or Himachal Pradesh.
‘European Unification’ were ideals held by Napoleon and Hitler. If you are talking about ‘ever closer political union’ that is not agreed to by everyone in Europe (The UK has just recently made it clear that they will NEVER accept this and will hold a referendum in July to ask their people whether they wish to leave the European Union which badly needs reform because it is bypassing the democratic sovereignty of member states) and you can see the strain with both the Euro (Greek bailouts which would lead to domino effect of Italy and Portugal falling out of monetary union) and the asylum seeker migration issue which has led to the closed borders and a serious suggestion that the Schengen Agreement (which abolished the EU’s internal borders other than for countries which opted out such as the UK) will have to be abandoned. In truth only one state in European union does all the big decisions and that happens to be Germany (so they got their way even without Hitler) clearly demonstrating what happens to the smaller partners in such unions and which would happen to Sikh homeland of Punjab if it were wrestled into submission by neighbouring Hindu majority States. As for killing our language well it is well known that for you to take away a people’s identity you need to get rid of the indigenous language – ask the Scots, the Welsh and Irish about what happened to their native tongues of Gaelic. There is nothing ‘extremist’ about wanting to protect your won language and I bitterly resent you stating that such an aspiration is somehow extremist as it is essential to one’s identity and in the case of Sikhs you are talking about a religious language with Gurmukhi in which Guru Granth Sahib Ji is written. No doubt you would prefer all the Saroops to be only in Hindi then you could slip ‘truth’ of ramayana into them too. Under NO circumstances are you going to divide Sikh homeland of Punjab any further or renaming it nor are you going to emasculate it by conjoining it with peoples of other States to give them a veto over Sikh affairs. As for German reunification you do know that was between East Germany and West Germany reuniting Germanic peoples? The analogue now would be to reunite Punjabis from Pakistani East Punjab and Indian West PUnjab. Do you want to do that? Didn’t think so. The best thing to do then is to leave the Sikhs alone and stop pernicious and cynical interference in their internal affairs. Only an idiot pulls at the mane of a sleeping lion.
They are now literally intending to bleed Punjab dry.