No review of river interlinking verdict: SC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the Centre's plea seeking review of its direction to government to implement the ambitious interlinking of rivers project in a time-bound manner.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia refused to have a relook at its February 27 judgement directing the government to "forthwith" constitute a committee for interlinking of rivers.

"We have gone through the review petition and the relevant documents. There is delay in filing the review petition. In our opinion, no case for review of our order is made out both on the grounds of delay as well as on merits and, accordingly, the review petition is dismissed," the bench said in its order.

The bench had in its February judgement directed the Centre to appointed a high-powered committee comprising representatives of various government departments, ministries, experts and social activists to chart out and execute the project.

"We direct the Union of India to forthwith constitute a committee for interlinking of rivers," the bench had said.

The river interlinking project was the brainchild of the NDA government and in October, 2002, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had formed a task force to get the project going against the backdrop of the acute drought that year.