The Centre on Monday presented the draft scheme for constitution of Cauvery Management Board two days after elections in Karnataka came to a close. The Court said that it will not examine whether the scheme is in conformity with its February 16, 2018 direction and left it to the stakeholders — Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry, to examine the scheme and file their responses by Wednesday.
The Centre was to prepare the scheme within six weeks from the date of judgment. This period expired on March 29 following which the Tamil Nadu Government moved a contempt petition against the Centre in Supreme Court.
On Monday, Union Water Resources Secretary UP Singh appeared before a Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra along with a copy of the draft scheme. Attorney General KK Venugopal said that the Court may finalise the scheme and even propose the nomenclature of the supervisory body, whether it should be a Board, Authority or Committee. The Water Secretary appeared in Court following the previous order by Court which held Centre to be in “sheer contempt” of its order and summoned the official to ensure speedy implementation of its decision. Once the Board will be in place, it will ensure smooth water distribution among the three states and one UT.
The bench, also comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, said, “We will not go into the correctness of the scheme framed by the Centre but examine whether the scheme conforms to our judgment (of February 16) or not.”
Tamil Nadu counsel senior advocate Shekhar Naphade urged the Court to implement the judgment at the earliest as the state was in dire need of water. The Court in its judgment had modified the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) award of 2007 and raised the 270 tmcft share of Cauvery water for Karnataka by 14.75 tmcft and reduced Tamil Nadu’s share, while compensating it by allowing extraction of 10 tmcft of groundwater from the river basin.
Naphade submitted to the Court that the Centre was politicizing the case as the delay to frame the scheme by the Centre was on account of elections in Karnataka. He urged the Court to consider sending some of the officials to jail for contempt. The Court, however, maintained that it does not wish to get into implementing its judgment but to ensure a scheme is made operational at the earliest.