NEW DELHI, APRIL 25: Bringing to an end the legal battle over the 25-year old Krishna river water dispute, the Supreme Court today allowed Karnataka to raise the height of controversial Almatti Dam from 509 metres to 519.6 meters but held that Andhra Pradesh could use surplus water in the river till a new tribunal decides the share of riparian states afresh. A five-judge Constitution bench in its unanimous decision upheld the 1973 award of the Krishna River Water Disputes Tribunal deciding the share of the three states Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh on the basis of the 2,060 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) dependable flow on the river.Scheme B framed in 1976 by the Tribunal headed by Justice Bachawat on sharing of dependable flow as well as the surplus water could not be taken as a decision and hence could not be implemented as was sought by Karnataka, Justice G B Pattanaik said writing the judgement for the bench.Under the present scheme, Karnataka has been allocated 700 TMC, Maharashtra 560 and Andhra Pradesh 800 TMC water with surplus water going to Andhra Pradesh. The Tribunal had said that though Andhra Pradesh could use the surplus water, it could not claim right over it.This scheme is reviewable in May this year. Keeping this in mind, the court observed that the Centre has expressed its willingness to set up a new tribunal immediately after being approached by any of the three riparian states with a complaint and added the parties could place requisite date before the new tribunal for fresh allocation of water.The bench said there was not even an iota of restriction imposed on Karnataka by the Tribunal not to raise the height of the Almatti Dam to 519 m and added that even the expert committee set up by the Chief Ministers of the riparian states agreed that the height could be raised to 519 meters.However, the bench noted that the plea of Karnataka to raise the height to 524 m could not be adjudicated by this court as it formed a part of the river dispute.The bench said Karnataka Government has to get permission from all concerned authorities, as envisaged under the law, before raising the height of the Dam from 509 to 519.6 m.Justice S B Majumdar, who headed the bench, Justice V N Khare, Justice U C Banerjee and Justice R P Sethi agreed with the findings given by Justice Pattanaik. Except for Justice Khare, all others noted their agreement through separate judgements but with different reasonings.In another significant finding, the Court ruled that the Tribunal had given the allocations under Scheme A for 2060 TMC dependable flow on enbloc basis and not project wise as claimed by Andhra Pradesh.The bench said Andhra Pradesh being the lower riparian state would get the surplus water but the Centre should not grant permission to it to proceed with any new large projects so that it might claim right over surplus water at a later date.
