With questions being raised about the feasibility and environment impact of the inter-linking of rivers project, the Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to have a relook at its February 27 decision this year that set the ball rolling by forming a special committee to implement the project. On separate review petitions filed by the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) and 21 eminent citizens, the bench of Chief Justice SH Kapadia, Justices AK Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar set out to examine the feasibility of its order in the light of objections raised by the two petitions. The review petitions would be listed in open court where upon hearing the petitioners, the Court would decide whether to issue notice on the same. The petitions termed the apex court order constituting a high-powered committee under the Ministry of Water Resources to study the status, monitor progress of every single link under the project and recommend the Centre for timely execution of the same as amounting to “judicial overreach”. A further direction in the same order gave liberty to the amicus curiae to file contempt petitions for non-implementation of its orders by which the Court blocked an independent assessment of project, discounted by experts to be fundamentally-flawed and potentially disastrous. The review petitioners comprising former Water Resources Secretary Ramaswamy R Iyer, former Planning Commission member A Vaidyanathan, and social activists like Vandana Shiva and Medha Patkar, had objected to the reasoning given by Court stating that the project was necessary in national interest. Moreover, as on date not a singly out of the 30 proposed links was ready for implementation. Even for Ken-Betwa link which the Court put for fast-track implementation had reported several deficiencies.