New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday put on hold the setting up of the Cauvery Water Management Board (CWMB) after the Centre filed a plea on Monday stating that the apex court had no jurisdiction to set up such a body.
The apex court bench also directed Karnataka to release 2,000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu from October 7 to 18.
The court has set up a technical panel headed by Chairman Central water commission to visit both states and submit a report by October 17. The CWMB issue will be taken up again on October 18, said reports.
In Tamil Nadu, several major political parties including the DMK and AIADMK had opposed the Centre’s U-turn on the CWMB. DMK chief M Karunanidhi had accused the Modi government playing politics with an eye on the 2018 Karnataka polls.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had on Monday contended before the Supreme Court that only Parliament had the right to constitute the CWMB. Citing Article 262, he had said that the Modi government’s earlier acceptance of the direction was his "mistake", and said there was an embargo on the Supreme Court from passing orders to form a Cauvery management board.
Rohatgi contended that Article 262 mandated that the Supreme Court cannot entertain any matter pertaining to an inter-State river dispute once a tribunal set up under parliamentary legislation has passed its final order.
In effect, this means that the Supreme Court has no right to entertain any petitions or applications post the 2007 Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal final order.
However, the top court rejected this interpretation of Article 262 by the AG, saying that the Centre's understanding of it was wrong as the embargo related to only original disputes.
Rohatgi had then called for an urgent hearing on this point on October 4, which was granted.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Karnataka government had acceded to the Supreme Court demand to release water to Tamil Nadu, stating it would give state 6,000 cusecs per day for six days from October 1 to 6.
