Modi to meet Khattar, Capt on SYL, SC told

New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has convened a meeting of chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana in an attempt to arrive at an amicable solution to the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal issue, the Supreme Court was informed on Tuesday.
During a hearing of the case, senior counsel AK Ganguly told a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra on behalf of Punjab that the Prime Minister had convened a meeting of the two chief ministers.As Ganguly made the all-important statement, Attorney General KK Venugopal said he was not aware of it. “I was not informed by the water resources secretary about any such meeting. But if it’s happening, it’s good,” Venugopal told the Bench.
The Attorney General explained the background of the case and requested the Bench to give two months to arrive at a negotiated settlement of the vexed problem.
Venugopal said much of the work on the canal in Haryana had been completed and it was only the Punjab part that remained pending. “Two of the engineers who went to start the work on the SYL canal in Punjab were shot and killed,” he said.
The Bench directed both states to ensure that there was no agitation on the SYL canal issue during pendency of the case. “How can there be any agitation when the matter is pending before this court?” it wondered. The Bench asked Punjab Advocate General Atul Nanda and Haryana Advocate General Baldev Mahajan to inform the authorities concerned about it during the day and fixed September 7 for further hearing.
The direction came after Nanda told the Bench a political party in Haryana was agitating on the issue and preventing vehicles with Punjab numbers from entering Haryana. After the SC hearing, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar appealed to his Punjab counterpart Capt Amarinder Singh to take immediate steps for the construction of the Satluj-Yamuna-Link canal for the benefit of farmers of both states.