Madurai
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court granted an interim injunction against the extraction of water from Nayaru channel in Ramanathapuram district using pumps.
A Division Bench of Justices N. Kirubakaran and S. S. Sundar
passed the order on a public interest litigation petition filed by M. Kaliappan of Ramanathapuram, an agriculturalist, who complained that private parties were indulging in commercial exploitation of water from the Nayaru channel.
Farmers were dependent on water from the channel for agriculture. Subject to rains, the excess water from the channel would get drained into agricultural fields. If such extraction of water continued, there would be no excess water to drain into the fields, leaving them dry.
This would impact agriculture in the region, the petitioner said and sought a direction to restrain private parties from indulging in illegal extraction from the Nayaru channel.