NEW DELHI:The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the maintainability of appeals filed by states against the 2007 award of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal on water sharing. In essence, it will continue to hear appeals filed by the four states. It also asked Karnataka to continue releasing 2,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu.
Welcoming the order, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the government will file a modification petition against the order on release of 2,000 cusecs daily.
On Friday, a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said that all the appeals filed by the southern states against the Tribunal’s award are maintainable, though the Centre had asserted that the apex court had no jurisdiction to hear appeals against the award of the tribunal.
In its 88-page ruling, the bench said that from the provisions it is clear as crystal that Parliament did not intend to create any kind of embargo on the jurisdiction of this court and the provision Section 6 (2) was inserted to give the binding effect to the award passed by the tribunal.
While refuting the Centre’s stand that court has no jurisdiction to hear plea challenging the award by the tribunal, it said, “Parliament has intended that the same (tribunal’s award) shall be executed or abided as if it is a decree of this court.”
On October 18, while directing Karnataka to keep supplying Tamil Nadu with 2,000 cusecs of water till further orders, the bench had also said it would first go into the issue of maintainability of appeals filed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala against the award of tribunal and then hear arguments on the report filed by the Supervisory Committee.