BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has constituted a five-member legal committee comprising senior lawyers of the Supreme Court to strongly place its argument before the tribunal on the Mahanadi river water dispute during its first hearing on September 29.
Sources said the committee comprises Mohan B Chatterjee, Mahesh Agrawal and Radheshyam Jena (presently dealing with Polavaram and Bansadhara cases), Dr Anindita Pujari and Ranbir Singh as its members.
Apart from forming the legal committee, the State Government has started consulting technical experts including former hydrologists of Central Water Commission (CWC), senior professors of Hydrology of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and former hydrologists of Roorkee-based National Institute of Hydrology to seek their expert opinion on the issue.
Earlier, the Government had decided to submit a 500-page interim application to the tribunal before its scheduled hearing.
The Centre had constituted the tribunal on March 12 as per the Inter State River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act, 1956 following a Supreme Court order on January 23 to resolve the Mahanadi river water dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
The Chief Justice of Supreme Court had nominated Justice AM Khanwilkar of the apex court as the Chairman of the tribunal which has Justice Ravi Ranjan of the Patna High Court and Justice Indermeet Kaur Kochhar of the Delhi High Court as members.