Supreme Court to set up separate bench to hear Cauvery dispute

The Supreme Court on Monday said that it will constitute a separate bench to hear Tamil Nadu’s plea for the release of its allotment of Cauvery river water for the month of August.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Tamil Nadu, mentioned the matter before a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. Rohatgi said that an application has been filed by the state seeking release of water for August, which has been ordered by the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA), and sought an urgent hearing.

Rohatgi told the apex court that a bench will have to be constituted to hear the matter as Justice AM Khanwilkar, who headed the last one, has since retired.

“I will constitute a bench today itself,” Chief Justice Chandrachud responded.

After Khanwilkar’s retirement, it is a normal course for the Supreme Court to constitute a new bench.

This is the first time that Tamil Nadu has approached the apex court to direct Karnataka to release Cauvery water after the 2018 judgement where the top court allocated water among riparian states modifying the 2007 Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal’s final award.

At the CWMA meeting held on August 10, Karnataka had expressed its inability to release water due to low storage levels in its reservoirs in the wake of poor monsoon. 

Last week, Tamil Nadu moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to Karnataka to release 24,000 cusecs of Cauvery water forthwith from its reservoirs at Biligundlu for the remaining period of the month, starting from August 14. It said the release of water was a dire necessity to irrigate standing crops.

Tamil Nadu has urged the court to direct Karnataka to ensure stipulated releases for September — 36.76 TMC, as per the Cauvery tribunal’s award as modified by the Supreme Court in 2018.

The state said Karnataka should make good the shortfall of 28.849 TMC water during the current irrigation year for the period between June 1 and July 31.

It asked the court to direct the CWMA to ensure that the directions issued to Karnataka to release water to Tamil Nadu were “fully implemented and the stipulated monthly releases during the remaining period of the current water year are fully given effect to by the state of Karnataka”.