The Supreme Court on May 8, 2006, declined to stay the ongoing construction work of the Sardar Sarovar dam and asked the prime minister to take a decision on the basis of a forthcoming report of the review group.

This was the final decision on the petition filed by the Narmada Bachao Andolan seeking a stay on the dam construction.

The bench of chief justice Y K Sabharwal and judges K G Balakrishnan and S B Sinha said it had two broad issues: whether relief and rehabilitation could be completed simultaneously with raising of the dam's height; and the validity of the special relief package. On both issues, an appropriate decision will be taken only after the report of the group formed by the prime minister is available, it said. The bench expects that the prime minister will take a decision by July 3 and has postponed the matter for a hearing on July 7.

Earlier, the Centre had informed the court that an independent audit will be conducted to look into the relief and rehabilitation (see