The Supreme Court of India has declined to modify the Cauvery Water Management Authority’s (CWMA) directive that instructs the State of Karnataka to release 5,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu. The bench, comprising Justices BR Gavai, PS Narasimha, and Prashant Kumar Mishra, upheld the order passed by the Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee (CWRC), stating that the situation is being monitored by the appropriate authorities every 15 days.
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Tamil Nadu, argued,
“It is a distress year for everyone. I’m a lower agrarian state. The calculation is based on that. In a regular year, I would have been eligible for 3 times more.”
He contended that although the CWMA and CWRC acknowledged that Tamil Nadu is eligible for 7,200 cusecs, the allocation was reduced to 5,000 cusecs.
On the other side, Senior Advocate Shyam Divan, representing Karnataka, stated,
“Karnataka doesn’t even get the benefit of the North East Monsoons.”
He informed the court that Karnataka had filed a separate application challenging the CWMA’s order.
Justice Gavai observed,
“There are rival claims, Tamil Nadu is saying they need 7,200 cusecs, Karnataka is saying they can only give 2,000 cusecs. We are not inclined to interfere. Every 15 days they [CWMA and CMRA] are monitoring and reviewing it. It is a body consisting of various experts and they have given their reasons.”
The Tamil Nadu government had initially approached the Supreme Court seeking its intervention to compel Karnataka to release 24,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) of water from its reservoirs. The objective was to secure a specified volume of water at Biligundlu on the interstate border for the remaining part of the current month.
The court’s decision comes in the backdrop of a long-standing dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the sharing of Cauvery river water, which dates back to 1974. The issue had previously reached the Supreme Court after the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) finalized the water-sharing formula in 2007.
Case Counsel:
- For Tamil Nadu: Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi
- For Karnataka: Senior Advocate Shyam Divan
- Bench: Justices BR Gavai, PS Narasimha, and Prashant Kumar Mishra of the Supreme Court of India