Centre informs SC of steps taken to fill vacancy in Krishna tribunal

New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that the Ministry of Water Resources had already written a letter in June this year to the Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu to recommend the name of a sitting High Court judge for filling the vacancy in the Krishna river water disputes tribunal.

Counsel for the Centre gave this information before a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C. Pant hearing petitions filed by the States of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra questioning the Tribunal’s award. Telangana wanted a fresh tribunal to be constituted to resolve the Krishna river water dispute among the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

On August 26 the bench wanted the Centre to inform by today whether it had taken steps to fill up the vacancy caused in the Krishna water disputes Tribunal due to resignation of Justice Deepak Seth.

The Bench asked the Centre’s counsel to inform on September 15 whether the CJI had made any recommendation and if so what action the government had taken on it.

In its fresh petition, Telangana said the right to access water being a human rights issue, fresh allocation of water must be made and the earlier award should be set aside. It said that under the law the Centre was to take a decision within one year for setting up a new Tribunal on receipt of a complaint.

But till date the Centre had not taken any decision and had not responded to the state’s complaint. It said the Union of India had a statutory obligation to refer the dispute to a new tribunal but it had failed to do so and hence the present writ petition has been filed. It sought a direction to the Centre to set up a fresh tribunal.