PM should break his silence on dam: Iyer

KOCHI: Justice V R Krishna Iyer on Saturday said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should break his silence and immediately intervene on the issue of Mullaperiyar dam. Speaking at a press conference here, Justice Iyer said that the precautionary principle in the Rio de Janeiro Declaration on Environment and Development of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in which India was also a signatory should be applied in the case of Mullaperiyar dam too. “The authorities should act immediately to save the people living downstream of the dam,” he said. The former Supreme Court judge, who termed the Prime Minister a ‘mute spectator’, said that the Kerala and Tamil Nadu chief ministers should try their level best to settle the issue amicably. In the letter written to the Prime Minister, he has brought the latter’s attention to the incident of Tamil Nadu ‘preventing’ a Kerala team led by Water Resources Minister P J Joseph to visit the dam site two days ago. “This is an outrage and the defiance of the right to Keralites and it is your duty to see that the entry prohibited by the Tamil Nadu Government is revoked. It is a matter of great importance since the two states seem to be in a cold war situation and your army and authority must see to it that the Constitution is not a void deed,” Justice Iyer said in the letter. Former Acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court Justice K Narayana Kurup, who was also present at the press conference, said that the Kerala Government should take a tough stand on its demand for a new dam.