LIP MLAs want Bill against Section 78

LUDHIANA: Leader, Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) and MLA from Atam Nagar constituency (Ludhiana) Simarjeet Singh Bains urged the state government to bring in a bill against inclusion of Section 78 in the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, which according to Bains, is unconstitutional.

During a press conference held in

Circuit House

on Thursday, Bains brothers, Simarjeet Singh Bains and Balwinder Singh Bains said the bill should be sent to the President and included in the presidential reference, which the President has forwarded to the Supreme Court (SC) regarding the

SYL

issue. According to Bains, the section allows Haryana to claim waters of Punjab.

Bains said if the government fails to present the bill in the assembly, they will launch an agitation. He also said the SC has asked governments of both states, Punjab and Haryana, to stop protests over SYL. But if the Punjab government does not want them to take to the roads, it should present the bill in the assembly, he said.

Bains said this is the same bill on the basis of which then Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal filed a PIL in Supreme Court in 1979. In 1982, the then Congress government took the case back after getting into an agreement with Haryana under pressure from then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He said current chief minister

Capt Amarinder Singh

moved SC on the same grounds in 2003 but the SC rejected the plea saying the case could not be accepted again.

Bains said the bill against Section 78 to 80 in the Punjab reorganization act is the only solution to the problems being faced by Punjab as these sections have allegedly not been included in any other reorganisation acts formed in the country to divide a state or form a new one. He said the injustice has not been done to Punjab. According to him, Section 14 of the inter-state Water Dispute Act, 1956 is also unconstitutional.

Bains also said he was suspended from the monsoon session of the legislative assembly over the demand for this bill. He said he raised the point that Punjab should collect water bill of Rs 16 lakh crores from Rajasthan but the point was not discussed in the assembly. He said many other questions and points submitted with the speaker went unanswered.