State seeks contempt action against Centre for not setting up Cauvery Mgmt Board in time
The Centre and Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court today over the non-constitution the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) in compliance with a February 16 order on the water sharing rights.
The Centre cited the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections - slated for May 12 while seeking a three-month extension for the execution of the apex court judgement. Apart from time, the Centre has also sought clarification on various issues for the formulation of a "scheme" for implementing the decision of the top court.
The Centre further submitted that Tamil Nadu and Karnataka could not agree on the constitution of the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee and sought a clarification from the apex court whether "it is open to the central government to frame the scheme under 6A at variance with the recommendations contained in the report of the CWDT (Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal) regarding the Cauvery Management Board." The Centre was supposed to constitute these committees within six weeks from the date of the pronouncement of the judgement.
Noting that the issue is highly political, the Centre asked the top court if it had the liberty and the flexibility to modify the composition of the CMB to include "a mixture of administrative and technical body" and "not purely a technical body" as recommended by the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT) for effective conduct of the business of the board.
The Centre suggested that since Karnataka is an "emotive" state, and relied on a law order situation in case in make its case for postponement.
"If the central government is to constitute a scheme under 6A of the ISWRD Act, 1956 and notify it during the state Vidhan Sabha election process, the central government fears that it would lead to a massive public outrage, vitiate the election process and cause serious law and order problem," it said.
Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, has sought contempt action against the Centre for its failure in implementing the top court judgement on the river-sharing dispute. "The central government is duty bound to take steps to facilitate implementation of the judgment by itself deciding and taking necessary action to constitute the machinery as per the mandate of this court. It has not taken any concrete steps in this regard," it said.
Meanwhile, Karnataka has opposed constitution of the CMB and sought an alternative mechanism in order to comply and implement the verdict.
Earlier this year, on February 16 The Supreme Court partially modified the final verdict of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT) and reduced the allocation of water shared by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu. Karnataka will now supply only 177.25 tmc of water to Tamil Nadu instead of the originally agreed upon 192 tmc.
Finally settling the century-old dispute, the apex court upheld the allocation of 30 tmc to Kerala and 7 tmc to Puducherry as ordered by the CWDT. However, the bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra has allocated 14.75 TMC ft of water to Karnataka over and above the 270 tmc as accorded by the CWDT. Of the 14.75 TMC, it has been allocated, 4.75 TMC will be for Bengaluru only to be used as drinking water only, even though the city is located outside the purview of the basin.
Settling a century-old dispute
On Feb 16, SC partially modified Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal’s verdict and reduced allocation of water shared by Karnataka to TN. K’taka will now supply 177.25 TMC to TN, instead of the agreed 192 TMC.
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 "Protest urging the Centre to constitute CMB-PTI")
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