The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it clear to the Tamil Nadu government that its application for setting up the Cauvery Management Board could be heard along with the main appeals challenging the final Cauvery award.
A three-judge Bench of Justices R.M. Lodha, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph told senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan, who appeared for Tamil Nadu: “Your [State’s] apprehensions are misconceived. Neither is there an urgent situation nor is there any emergency in the prayers made by you.”
When Mr. Vaidyanathan said that Karnataka was going ahead with various irrigations projects, Justice Lodha asked: “Are these schemes operational now? These are only proposals. These irrigation schemes can’t be implemented overnight. Whatever they [Karnataka] do in their territory, your anxiety gets triggered. In this monsoon, God has taken care of water. We can understand if there was a drought situation and your crop gets affected.”
To this, Mr. Vaidyanathan said: “We are concerned about future as Karnataka was drawing more water,” but Justice Lodha quipped: “Don’t worry about that. You worry about your entitlement. Why are you fighting with your neighbour?”
Wasim Quadri, the Centre’s counsel, said till now Centre had not sanctioned any new project for Karnataka and the proposal for constitution of the Cauvery Management Board was under the consideration of the Union government.
Justice Lodha told the counsel: “Why are obsessed with the Board? We have already made ad hoc arrangement. If it is not working then we are here to look into it.” The Bench then asked both the Centre and Karnataka to respond to Tamil Nadu’s application in four weeks and directed that the application be listed along with the main appeals in January/February, 2014.
In its application, Tamil Nadu said Chief Minister Jayalalithaa wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a letter dated September 2, about Karnataka’s plan to construct a hydropower station at Mekedatu and for this purpose three reservoirs were planned to be constructed across the Cauvery near Mekedatu.
