Cauvery water dispute: Karnataka to file review petition before CWMA, SC today

“We will file a review petition before the CWMA and the Supreme Court…The state is not in a position to comply with the directive due to lack of water in our Cauvery reservoirs,” Siddaramaiah said after the meeting.

Former CJI M N Venkatachaliah, retired Supreme Court judges Shivraj Patil, V Gopala Gowda, R V Ravindran, former high court judges P Vishwanath Shetty and A N Venugopal Gowda, and former advocate generals B V Acharya, Madhusudhan Naik, Vijayashankar, Uday Holla and Ravivarma Kumar attended the meeting.

Hours before the meeting, the CWMA on Friday ordered Karnataka to release 3,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu from September 29 to October 15 and turned down Karnataka’s plea for giving a break for the release of water as it argued that the existing storage in the Cauvery reservoir was insufficient to meet the drinking water and agricultural demands.

Meanwhile, the experts also made a recommendation to present the construction of the Mekedatu Balancing Reservoir cum Drinking Water Project as a solution before the Supreme Court.

On September 21, a special bench of the Supreme Court set up to hear the Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu agreed to hear Karnataka’s petition seeking approval for the Mekedatu project. This construction of the reservoir aims to be a balancing reservoir with a storage capacity of 67 TMC feet of water.

“The former judges and advocate generals have advised the government to make use of the opportunity to present their argument for the project before the Supreme Court on how the project can solve the water-sharing dispute between both the states permanently,” Siddaramaiah said.

Replying to a question, Siddaramaiah said that a special session will be called if an occasion arises. He also said that there would be contempt of court only if the order was deliberately disobeyed. He added that the government is planning to form a permanent advisory committee which consists of experts from all the relevant fields to deal with the inter-state water disputes to advise the government from time to time.