Reason’s bench mark

Time and again, when clarity on public issues gets lost in the swirl of high-decibel charges and counter-charges, it is the Supreme Court that is asked to provide illumination. This time, too, it was no exception. The controversy over the raising of the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam — which had recently played out over several acrimonious and anxious weeks — needed the considered deliberation of the apex court for a resolution. And the court did not disappoint.

Cutting through the clutter, it came out on the side of the uninterrupted construction of the dam, together with credible rehabilitation. The three-member committee set up by the prime minister will now come back to the court in July with a “holistic view” on the relief and rehabilitation measures provided by the state governments concerned. The court took due note of the two outstanding aspects of rehabilitation: one, whether it will be completed simultaneously with submergence; two, whether the package offered to the oustees was satisfactory. This observation in itself testifies to the seriousness the court plans to accord to all aspects of the process. It is such careful weighing of issues by the Supreme Court that saw some welcome movement, last month, on the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor, a highway project that had stalled at the red light of political interest-peddling. The Supreme Court is by no means driven blindly by the “big development” paradigm. It has always weighed these issues very carefully. Consider, for instance, its verdict last year ordering the closure of 218 industrial and mining units all over the country for not getting the required clearance under the Environment Protection Act. Or its 2002 verdict, which held 41 companies guilty for advertising their products on environmentally sensitive glacial rocks and flouting the Forest Conservation Act — a campaign that this newspaper was associated with.

India cannot afford to have important infrastructural projects — which deliver the much-required bijli, sadak, paani to the people — delayed interminably. Therefore there needs to be a fine balance achieved between contending interests; between developmental imperatives and human and environmental costs. The Supreme Court has achieved just such a balance.