HYDERABAD, Sept 1: The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Thursday directed the provincial government to take steps for standard operating procedure (SOP) for testing the Manchhar Lake water before its discharge into the River Indus, preferably within two months.

It expressed concern over a statement of the secretary irrigation that there was no standard procedure for testing the lake water before releasing it into the river.

The court ordered that no lake water should be discharged into the River Indus unless such procedure was devised and lake water was tested, and was found suitable for discharging.

The bench comprising, Mr Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Mr Justice Mohammad Athar Saeed, ordered that approval of such suitability should be obtained from the highest level of the government functionary.

The court adjourned the matter till Sept 21, as counsel for one of petitioners, Taj Mohammad Kaimkhani, submitted before the court that he would be ascertaining veracity of the affected persons’ list attached with the statement of secretary irrigation and power department and if they had been paid compensation.

Additional Advocate-General Sindh Masood A. Noorani filed statements of secretary irrigation and power Shuja Ahmed Junejo and Hyderabad DCO Mohammad Hussain Syed in response to court order dated Aug 15 directives. The court had asked him to file a categorical statement as to payment of compensation to those who died due to consumption of poisonous water in 2004 as well as those who fell sick due to it and initiation of criminal cases against department officials found responsible.

Mr Noorani submitted that he would file an affidavit of the secretary irrigation on the next date of hearing.

Referring to statement of the secretary irrigation that there was no standard procedure for testing water of Manchhar lake before releasing it into River Indus, the bench observed that for not having such procedure for testing the lake water, a large number of people had already lost their lives and apprehended that similar incidents might recur.

The court said the statement did not show that any steps had been taken by the government for devising standard operating procedure for testing lake water before its discharge into rive water.

“We therefore consider it extremely necessary that some standard procedure for testing lake water is devised before its discharge into the river,” it ordered.

The irrigation secretary in his statement recalled that the Sindh government had formed an inquiry committee on issue of supply of contaminated water to the people of Hyderabad.

The body had concluded: “The committee having considered legal position on one hand and the facts on other came to the conclusion that although the whole chain of command starting from executive engineer to the secretary were responsible for releasing water from Manchhar lake into the river, none of them had any inkling about such contamination or its effects in absence of any rules making officers responsible for any testing of the water and never having followed any prior intimation system for releasing the water of Manchhar. The conditions under which irrigation department released water were pressing for such release and there being no laid down procedure or Standard Operating Procedure involving testing of water before such release the action of the irrigation department does not sound illegal or illogical.”

He enclosed the enquiry report with his statement for perusal of the court that in view of the findings no official of the irrigation department had been held responsible for the incident, no action had been initiated against any official of irrigation and power department.

The secretary said the irrigation department had not been held responsible for making any compensation to persons who expired or suffered sickness on account of incident as such no compensation had been paid by the department.