In a move defying the Supreme Court, the Punjab government said it will denotify land acquired for the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal project and return it to the “original owners” at no cost, the state Cabinet announced on Tuesday. Punjab Irrigation Minister Sharanjit Singh Dhillon said the decision was made after consulting experts on the subject, PTI reported.

“The Punjab council of ministers decided in public interest that the land acquired for the SYL canal project, at present vested in the Punjab government...stands denotified with immediate effect,” said Harcharan Bains, the advisor to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on national affairs and media. The land shall “forthwith vest in the original land owners of their lineal descendants/legal representatives free of cost”, he added.

The Punjab Assembly is scheduled to convene a special session on Wednesday to discuss the water-sharing dispute in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling in the matter. The top court had dubbed the Punjab government’s move to terminate the six-state agreement as “unconstitutional”. The agreement in 2004 was meant for the six states to share river waters. All 42 legislators of the Congress’ Punjab unit had resigned from the state Assembly to mark their protest against the Supreme Court verdict.

The Congress’ state unit has sought clarity from the government on its agenda for the special Assembly session called to discuss the Sutlej-Yamuna canal dispute. Punjab Congress President Captain Amarinder Singh had said the party would not make any decision on participating in the session unless the government provided an agenda for it.

On November 10, the top court had also ordered a status quo on a recent resolution passed by the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government, through which the Punjab government had denotified the land acquired to construct the canal to return the plots to the farmers. The Centre will now take over the construction of the conduit meant to distribute water among six states – Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Delhi.