Cauvery row: Karnataka says TN plea not maintainable

Tamil Nadu, accused Karnataka for wrongly appropriating its share of Cauvery river water

Karnataka on Tuesday submitted to the Supreme Court that Tamil Nadu’s plea for release of at least 30 thousand million cubic feet (TMCft) of water from Cauvery river is not maintainable and the court should not adjudicate the dispute on basis of emotional appeals.

Appearing before a bench of justices D K Jain and Madan B Lokur, the rival states continued to level allegations against each other with Tamil Nadu accusing Karnataka of cornering its share of water and the latter alleging that the former is making emotional appeal to the apex court to get more water.

Senior advocate Anil Diwan, appearing for Karnataka said Tamil Nadu’s plea is not maintainable as the state has not challenged the decisions of Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) and Cauvery River Authority (CRA) headed by the Prime Minister. “

There is a method for settling disputes between two states and it is not being followed by Tamil Nadu. It has not challenged the decision of CRA and CMC. It has instead filed interim application in the old dispute,” he said.

Diwan said that farmers of Karnataka would also suffer if the water is released to Tamil Nadu and five to ten thousands acres of land would go waste with release of one TMC water.

“It is very emotional to say that their farmers are suffering. Let us not go by the emotional appeal and the matter should be decided by following proper procedure,” he said. Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, accused Karnataka for wrongly appropriating its share of Cauvery river water.

“Our 15 lakh acres of land would go waste. Country’s food security should be matter of concern for everyone. It has been wrongfully appropriating water and they are bound to release,” said senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, appearing for Tamil Nadu and added that the state was facing a deficit of 39 TMCft of water.

The bench, however, said emotional appeal is not relevant and it would pass the order on the basis of ground realities.

The arguments remained inconclusive and will be taken up tomorrow. The court is hearing an interim application filed by Tamil Nadu for release of water from Cauvery. During earlier hearing on November 26, the court had asked the chief ministers of the two states to meet and arrive at an amicable solution to the “sensitive” Cauvery water dispute. The talks between the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, however, had failed to break the deadlock on water sharing row and the matter again reached the apex court.