NEW DELHI: The final award given by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal on February 5 has been challenged in the Supreme Court by the Cauvery Water Users Association of Bangalore and three others.

The petition came up for hearing on Friday before a Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice R.V. Raveendran.

Appearing for the petitioners, senior counsel Harish Salve said the award was being challenged to the limited extent that it did not provide adequate drinking water to Bangalore.

Since Mr. Justice Raveendran, who hails from Karnataka, did not want to hear the matter the Chief Justice directed it to be listed before another Bench. Meanwhile, Mr. Salve said the petitioners would make certain amendments to the petition and the Bench granted the liberty.

Direction sought

The petitioners submitted that the final award, on the face of it, was arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional affecting the lives of millions of people of Karnataka, particularly the residents of Bangalore city who would be deprived of drinking water. They said the award violated the fundamental rights of the citizens guaranteed under Articles 14 and 21of the Constitution. They sought a direction to quash the award and to restrain the Centre from notifying it in the gazette as per Section 6 of the Inter-State Water Disputes Act.

The petitioners said the tribunal had no doubt accepted the equitable principle in apportionment of the water in the Cauvery basin to different States, but it had erred in properly applying the principles laid down by the apex court. The tribunal grossly erred in upholding the two agreements of 1892 and 1924 entered between the then princely State of Mysore and the then composite Madras State.

The tribunal failed to note that after the coming into force of the Constitution on January 26, 1950, all laws and agreements inconsistent with its provisions were null and void.

While Karnataka made a claim of 30 tmc ft to meet the drinking water requirements of Bangalore, the tribunal awarded 8.75 tmcft towards drinking water for the entire Cauvery basin area, which on the face of it was "absurd." "It is very strange that Tamil Nadu should insist on the Cauvery basin area of Bangalore city only to calculate the requirements of drinking water, whereas Tamil Nadu gets an extent of 15 tmc ft of water from the Krishna under the Telugu Ganga project to Chennai out of which Karnataka has graciously given a portion of its share of water awarded by the Krishna tribunal."

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