The Supreme Court refused to grant an early hearing to the Haryana government's request to take up the Presidential reference on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal without any further loss of time. Senior counsel Shanti Bhushan, who mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal, said the reference had been pending for over a year and needed to be taken up urgently. However, the court said this would be difficult, given its packed schedule.