Bengaluru: Welcoming the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the maintainability of appeals filed against the 2007 award of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT) on sharing the river water, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the state will seek modification in the directions to provide Tamil Nadu 2,000 cusecs of water.
"The Supreme Court decision upholding the maintainability of appeals filed against the Cauvery Tribunal's award is a welcome move," Siddaramaiah was quoted as saying in an official statement.
He said, "We will appeal to seek modification in the order to release 2,000 cusecs of water every day. We will discuss with legal experts."
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said all the appeals filed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala against the Tribunal's award are maintainable, though the Centre had asserted that the apex court had no jurisdiction to hear appeals against the award of the tribunal.
"We hold all the appeals maintainable. Interim order to continue. List the matter for further hearing on December 15," a bench also comprising Justices Amitava Roy amd A M Khanwilkar said.
On October 18, the apex court had directed Karnataka to keep releasing 2,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu till further orders.
The bench had also said it would first go into the issue of maintainability of appeals filed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala against the award of tribunal and then hear arguments on the report filed by the Supervisory Committee formed to assess the ground realities in the Cauvery basin region.
