Southern States of India support SC’ observation over the maintainability of Cauvery issue case

The Southern states of India- Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka- supported an observation made by the Supreme Court regarding the maintainability of the Cauvery water dispute case.   The appeal seeking the maintainability of the Cauvery water case was filed by these three south Indian states itself. Earlier, in 2007, the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal declared a verdict in the case. Through this controversial observation, the apex court announced that the appeal filed against the Tribunal’s order is maintainable. The controversial observation was reportedly made by a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra. Justice Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar were the two other members of the bench. The court had recently appointed a panel to know the ground reality of the Cauvery river issue. In the forty pages report submitted by the panel, it suggested that the authorities should do away with the outdated water application technique.

The report observed that the farmers living in the disputed states were severely affected by the crisis. The report analysed that those farmers who were affected by the issue deserve compensation. Anyway, the apex court held that the court will initially hear the maintainability issue and later only hear the panel report. Notably, the centre government’s representative argued that the issue do not come under the SC’s jurisdiction. Interestingly, the Pondicherry government also supported the centre’s argument. However, the court rejected the arguments made by the centre government. Earlier, it had advised the centre government to constitute a Cauvery Water Management Board. The court also insisted that the board representatives must visit the disputed location to analyse the ground reality.

vignesh

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