Apex court accepts Karnataka stand on CMC's order

The Supreme Court on Tuesday accepted Karnataka’s contention that Tamil Nadu cannot question the findings of the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC), which had declined to issue any direction to release more water.

The apex court said that Tamil Nadu instead should challenge it in the Prime Minister-headed Cauvery River Authority (CRA) as per the statutory scheme. “We have to take the order passed by Cauvery Monitoring Committee to its logical conclusion. If you (TN) are aggrieved with the order of the CMC, go to Cauvery River Authority. If still you are aggrieved, you can come to the court,” a bench of justices R M Lodha and J Chelameswar said.

The court, while hearing a plea made by Tamil Nadu seeking direction to release 12 tmc ft of water to save its samba crop, refused to issue any immediate direction to Karnataka for release of water.

“If the scheme of the statute provides certain methods, then why not follow it,” the court told senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, appearing for Tamil Nadu. He tried to reason by saying that the court had earlier issued similar directions in 2002-03, but the bench was not impressed. The present proceedings here arose out of Tamil Nadu’s move to approach the CMC, now, its directions should be challenged before the CRA, we have to take the procedure to its logical conclusion, the court repeated. Senior advocate Fali S Nariman, representing Karnataka, submitted there is an expert body in the form of CMC which arrived at its findings. “Are we to go without drinking water,” he asked.

Acknowledging the concerns expressed by Nariman, the court said: “Sixteen tmc ft is your storage at present and your drinking water requirement exceeds 16 tmc ft as found by the CMC.” On this, Vaidyanathan submitted, the CMC ignored everything even order passed by the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal.

“How can the CMC come to a different conclusion? They cannot override the Tribunal’s order,” the counsel asked.

“Why are you taking us to the findings made by the tribunal? For drinking water requirement of 2013, we cannot rely on figures of 1992 (when tribunal passed interim award) as the basis,” the court said. “We can’t just upset the findings of the committee (CMC).”

Nariman also pointed out  that as per the current population, total requirement for Bangalore city and 48 towns and rural areas came to around 28.29/34.29 tmc ft and out of which the need for remaining months of February to May would come to 9.67/11.67 tmc ft.