- (1.) S. T. Coleridge's Marinar on voyage, at the fag end of eighteenth century cried "water, Witer, everywhere, nor any drop to drink" (Coleridge in the time of Ancient Marinar ).
(2.) NOT only the continent, where Coleridge was born, but several countries of the other continents have succeeded in quenching the thirst of their people by providing them potable water, but although fifty years' have passed, since the dawn of freedom, in this part of the World, water, which the nature has provided in abundance is scarce. A recent policy pronouncement of the Prime Minister still attaches high priority of the Government to provide drinking water to the millions, whose women folk, on tardy paths are forced to go bare footed, miles away from their villages, to bring a pitcher of water. No doubt, in many part of the State, rivers have been harnessed. Water gushes into the canals to irrigate the fields, but the major part of the State for purpose of irrigating the agricultural fields still depends on monsoon. The Rohilkhand areas of the State suffer due to scanty rains. During the summer the ground water leval comes down to several hundred feet. To find out various water resources which could be developed for providing drinking water to the people and irrigating their fields, a ground water cell in the State was established in the year 1970. The Government of India also took initiative in strengthening the ground water resources, by setting up water minor irrigation organisations in various State. As a result of which ground water investigation organisa tion was established in the State of U. P. in the year 1975, as a separate department under the charge of a Directorate. Later on it was converted into a full fledged ground water department.
(3.) THE department is headed by a Directorate and consisted of Superintend ing Engineer (Civil), Superintending En gineer (Mechanical), Executive Engineer (Civil), Executive Engineer/senior Hydrogeologist, Senior Hydrolpgist/senior Geophysicist, Geohydrologist, Senior Geophysiscist, Assistant Engineer Civil/mechanical, Hydrologist Civil/mechanical, Assistant Geologist, Assistant Geophysicist, Chemist/assistant Chemist, Assistant Hydrogeologist and Assistant Geophysicist; meaning thereby that the ground water department is a multi-dis ciplinary department, where the Scientist and Engineers both put their intellect and energies and work together to utilise the ground water resources for providing drink ing water to the people as well as for irrigat ing the agricultural fields in the State. Whether this department has made any headway or not, to achieve the object for which it was created, cannot be answered as neither this Court has been called upon to adjudicate that point nor it possesses suffi cient date to arrive at a conclusion. But the fact remains, that the Scientists and the En gineers have engaged themselves into a tug of war and made an attempt to turn this Court into an arena, to settle their score. It seems that the petitioners have forgotten the noble goal and the object for which they were inducted into service, wasted their in tellect, energy, experience, resources and time in litigating, for promotion and seniority. Some of the petitioners filed cases before the U. P. Public Services Tribunal and when they failed to get the desired results, they filed the writ petition before the Court. In few of the writ petitions interim orders were passed. In writ petition No. 9850 (SB) of 1993 filed by Sri Majid Ansari an interim order was passed on 18-3-94, wherein in a nut shell, the Court indicated that the Government should take speedy steps to frame Rules, so that officers of the depart ment may not have the feeling of discontent ment. The confusion was worst confounded by the Government of Uttar Pradesh, which till now, has not framed any Rules governing the conditions of services of the persons working in the Ground Water Department.;