Don’t use water from Pavana dam to maintain cricket ground: Bombay HC to MCA

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday barred the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) from using water from the Pavana dam for maintaining cricket ground in Pune for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 matches.

Earlier on April 13, Bombay HC issued a notice to MCA seeking reply on how the body was planning to arrange water for maintaining the Pune ground.

The interim order comes a day after all subsequent IPL matches of Chennai Super Kings were shifted to Pune following ongoing protests against the formation of Cauvery Management Board (CMB).

The bench later asked the MCA to explain how it would arrange water to prepare and maintain the ground after the matches were shifted from Chennai to Pune.

The notice comes in the wake of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the NGO Loksatta Movement in 2016.

The petition is the same under which the court had ordered to move all IPL matches out of Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium, amid the ongoing water crisis in the city, in the ninth edition of IPL.

During the hearing, Loksatta argued that since Pune only received water from Pavana river, using the same water for preparing the ground may affect the supply to the rest of the areas.

The MCA has been given a deadline of April 18 to respond to this notice.

IPL matches were shifted out of Chennai after a number of Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) party workers protested outside the state’s Chepauk Stadium in a bid to stop the match.

The protestors demanded that IPL matches not be held in the state until the more pressing matter, like the Centre’s failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB), is addressed.