Clarify stand on 'Cauvery Calling' in two days: HC to state

The High Court on Monday asked the state government to clarify within two days whether the Cauvery Calling project a state project or not.

Even in the previous hearings, the court had pulled up the state government for not coming clean with true facts.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka said since the main grievance in the PIL, which now has been converted into a suo motu petition, is that a private entity is projecting ‘Cauvery Calling’ as a government project, the state government must clear the position.

During the hearing, the amicus curiae submitted that the Union government under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme had devised a project as an agroforestry scheme. This project was funded by the government to be implemented by involving NGOs and like-minded organisations. The PIL had named Isha Foundation as the respondent. However, Isha Outreach requested to be impleaded claiming the project is implemented by it.

The bench orally asked the government advocate whether the state government is willing to issue a public notice stating that Cauvery Calling is a project of Isha Outreach and the state government has not approved it. The bench orally asked the advocate to take instruction to show any order of the government which permitted participation of either Isha Foundation or Isha Outreach in any of the government projects or in mobilisation enrolling of the farmers in any scheme.

In the previous submissions, the state government had stated that though Isha Foundation had approached it with a detailed project report, it was not approved. However, in another submission, the state government said the proposal of the Isha Foundation was accepted with a rider that the responsibility taken by the foundation was only limited to the mobilisation of farmers and enrolling the farmers under Krishi Aranya Protsaha Yojane. The court had pointed out the inconsistency in the stand taken by the state government.