The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a Telangana government petition against a decision of the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal-II to limit the re-allocation of the river water only to the two successor States of Andhra and Telangana, and not dabble with the share of water enjoyed by the other two riparian States — Maharashtra and Karnataka.
A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and P.C. Pant categorically refused — without prejudice to any other writ or special leave petitions filed by Telangana in the Supreme Court — to intervene with the decision of the Water Dispute Tribunal-II to confine the question of re-allocation of river water, post bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, to the two successor States of Telangana and Andhra and not all the four riparian States. The tribunal had decided that the details of the re-distribution would be decided as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014 by an apex council headed by top officials.
The Bench explicitly told Telangana that it would not want to go into the entire award of the tribunal nor delve into a fresh consideration of the water dispute.
In its petition, Telangana contended that, on its formation, it was confronted with the situation of “inadequate utilization of Krishna water out of the en bloc allocation of 811 TMC of 75 per cent dependable water, made by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-I. “The projects identified and allocations made by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II in Telangana region of erstwhile A.P. is also woefully inadequate being just 9 tmcft of 448 tmcft of surplus water among the riparian States,” the Telangana contended.
