Krishna Joshi, president of a Dharwad-based non-governmental organisation, Puraskar, had sought details under the Right to Information Act about some important issues, including the Tribunal award, advocates’ fee and number of visits paid to Delhi by delegations representing Karnataka.
With the Water Resources Department failing to provide full information, the final hearing of the Information Commission to be held in Bangalore on September 27 has gained significance.
Rs 1.94 cr expenditure
Though 18 lawyers had argued on behalf of the State in the Cauvery issue, only nine lawyers visited Bangalore to discuss with the Government about the dispute between 1991 and 2007. Interestingly, the Department has not supplied any information about other nine lawyers’ visits and their expenditure.
Nevertheless, the incomplete information provided by the Water Resources Department is also not clear. The Department in a set of information released on June 19, 2007 had said that nine advocates visited Bangalore for 619 times. But in the information provided on July 25, it said that number of visits paid by lawyers is 647 times. 
Details of visits paid by the nine advocates, their boarding and lodging expenditure is as follows: Fali S Nariman 17 times (Rs 9.79 lakh), Anil Diwan 59 times (Rs 32.56 lakh), S S Javali 160 times (31.68 lakh), Mohan Katarki 176 times (Rs 42.11 lakh), Shambhu Prasad Singh 159 times (Rs 44.08 lakh), Sanjay Hegde nine times (Rs 4.24 lakh), Sayyad Naqvi 35 times (Rs 7.33 lakh), Ranveer Singh 14 times (Rs 8.44 lakh) and Brijesh Kalappa 18 times (Rs 13.58 lakh).
The Government has spent a total of Rs 1, 93, 81, 000 for advocates’ lodging and boarding during their visit to Bangalore to discuss about the Cauvery issue.
AG’s absence
C Shivappa was serving as the Advocate General of Karnataka during 1991 when the Tribunal gave its interim order. He attended only 10 out of 13 meetings of the Tribunal held during his tenure. The Water Resources Department had not maintained records about why the Advocate General remained absent for three meetings.
Upset over this, Krishna Joshi on Tuesday (July 31) once again wrote to the Water Resources Department seeking details about reasons given by Mr Shivappa for not attending the meetings and issues discussed in the Tribunal meetings during Mr Shivappa’s absence.
Final award of the Tribunal has not been published in Kannada. The Department said that as the media gave extensive coverage to the Cauvery proceedings and the final award, there was no necessity for publishing the award in Kannada.
Incomplete info
The Water Resources Department has not furnished complete ‘information about the State delegations taken to Delhi in connection with the Cauvery dispute.
The Department only said that there were six delegations and has furnished names of the members in the first delegation only. The Department has said that it does not have details of members of other (five) delegations and their expenditure.
Krishna Joshi has posed six more questions to the answers provided by Watershed Department on July 25 and has hoped that the answers would be provided before September 27.