Court reserves order on IPL matches in Kanpur

The IPL water woes seemed to have no end when a petition, on the lines of petitions filed in Maharashtra and Rajasthan, were filed in the city of Kanpur. The court, on Monday (April 25), reserved order on the point of mandatory provision of notice to the government in the proposed Indian Premier League match case in which the petitioner had urged the IPL authorities to shift the matches out of the water crisis hit city of Kanpur.

Anita Dua of NGO Lakshya, had filed a petition before the Civil Judge (Junior Division) through a lawyer stating the city witnesses confrontation between people over water every day. “If IPL matches are allowed in the city hundreds of litres of water would be required to prepare the pitches. Which is wrong. So we’ve requested the matches not be allowed keeping in mind the problem,” Dua had quoted.

The petitioner’s counsel Anand Shankar Jaiswal, stated that the state government was a party in this case and there was a mandatory provision of a notice of 60 days under Section 80 of Civil Procedure Code (CPC). Since IPL matches were proposed to be held in Kanpur in May, the notice would fail the purpose of the petition. Therefore, the petitioner should be exempted from this mandatory provision.

Now, the district government counsel, DP Singh Yadav, countered this argument of the petitioner. He said that that without mentioning any specific date, the petitioner was asking for a relief which was illegal. Moreover, the petitioner had no right to present this case as injunction was granted on personal or individual loss, but here the petitioner was not suffering any loss.

He further stated that the venue for the matches, the Green Park Stadium has its own water supply and does not use any water from Jal Sansthan. And hence it was not causing any water loss to any individual in the city.

Kanpur is stated to host two IPL matches for Gujarat Lions, one against the Knight Riders and the other against Mumbai Indians.

Read also – IPL water woes continue in Rajasthan