Supreme Court Declines Interim Order on Tamil Nadu’s Request for Cauvery Water Release; Requests Report from CWMA
The Supreme Court declined to issue an immediate order on Friday in response to Tamil Nadu’s appeal for the release of 24,000 cusecs of Cauvery water, citing the court’s lack of expertise on the matter. The court instead requested a report from the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) on the quantity of water released by Karnataka before September 8 (Friday).
A bench of three judges led by Justice BR Gavai asked the CWMA to provide a report on the volume of water released by Karnataka, following Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati’s information that a meeting of the authority is scheduled for Monday.
“We do not possess any expertise on the matter. The ASG informs us that authorities are meeting on Monday to decide the discharge of water for the next fortnight. We find that it will be appropriate that CWMA submits its report on whether the directions issued for discharge of water have been complied with or not,” stated the bench, which also included Justices PS Narasimha and PK Mishra.
The Karnataka government has criticized Tamil Nadu’s request for the Supreme Court to instruct it to release 24,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily for agricultural crops, terming it as “wholly misconceived”. In an affidavit submitted to the top court, the Karnataka government explained that Tamil Nadu’s plea was founded on the inaccurate assumption that “the current water year is a normal water year and not a distressed water year