Dam controversy made me unhappy, says KT Thomas

May 12, 2012 - Abhish K. Bose |

Kottayam

Tags:

I regret the way I have become a victim in the controversy that erupted after the empowered committee report come out, of which I was a member.

Though I never faced any impediments in discharging my responsibilities as a member the unnecessary controversy has made me unhappy, Justice K.T. Thomas told DC in an exclusive interview.

How did you accept the job as a committee member?

It was Harish Salve, who first asked me to be part of the empowered committee. Later I was requested by the then water resources minister N.K. Premachandran whom I told that I would accept the job only on the condition that I would not act for any particular state, but would discharge my duties with fairness and justness.

What about the committee’s findings? The popular perception is that these are against the interest of the state.

The committee’s finding did us a real favour. By saying that the dam was safe the report averted a great disaster.

How could you say the dam was safe? You have said it was safe for the next 100 years.
It is after the findings and study of experts, and my personal consultation and study of the engineers in whom I have immense faith, that I reached the conclusion that the dam was very safe.

Did you think that your role would stir such controversies?

I really thought my efforts would be praised. As we had seen the hullabaloo that a comment (P.J. Joseph’s comment that the dam was unsafe) by a minister created in Kerala.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/150998" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-7a4b8296b1963e290c6d430c382fb44e" value="form-7a4b8296b1963e290c6d430c382fb44e" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85662210" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>