Source – huffingtonpost.in<\/p>\n
NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a PIL seeking cancellation of the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan while observing that it has found no merit in the plea.<\/p>\n
The plea has been filed by a Delhi-based lawyer ML Sharma, who has said that the treaty is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
“Not finding any merit in the PIL of Sharma. We do not want to interfere,” an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar said.<\/p>\n
Sharma in his plea urged the top court for cancelling the treaty on the ground that it was not a valid document.<\/p>\n
The treaty was signed on September 19, 1960, by India’s first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan.<\/p>\n
However, Sharma says the treaty is invalid as it was signed by Nehru and Khan, adding that it should have been signed by the President of India.<\/p>\n
The agreement covers six rivers – the three eastern rivers of Ravi, Beas, Sutlej and their tributaries and the three western rivers of Indus, Jhelum, Chenab and their tributaries.<\/p>\n
Water from the eastern rivers has been allocated to India, and New Delhi is obligated to let 80 percent water from the western rivers flow to Pakistan.<\/p>\n
The treaty gives the lower riparian Pakistan more ‘than four times’ the water available to India.<\/p>\n