Centre obliged to implement Cauvery award: SC
THE DIRECTIVE: ‘You must show your bona fide that you will frame a scheme to respect the top court order for the distribution of water’
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Centre for not framing a scheme to implement its verdict on the sharing of Cauvery river water as it declined its plea for deferring the issue by three months.
Asking the Centre to draft the scheme by May 3, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said: “You must show your bona fide that you will frame a scheme to respect the top court order for the distribution of water.”
Asking Attorney General K K Venugopal to file the scheme as ordered by the top court by its February 16 judgement, Chief Justice Misra said: “You must file it... they are bound to do it and obliged to it.”
Attorney General Venugopal told the court that there was some difficulty and they were examining whether a scheme for the implementation of the 2007 Cauvery award as slightly modified by the February 16 ruling should be headed by an administrative or a technical member.
Citing the ongoing election to the Karnataka Assembly and seeking clarifications, the Centre had sought three months time to frame the scheme for the implementation of Cauvery award which was slightly modified by the apex court in February.
Appearing for Tamil Nadu, senior counsel Shekhar Naphade told the court: “Your order was so clear that even a person having even elementary knowledge of English could understand it. But for reasons better known to Union of India, they can’t understand it.”
Tamil Nadu had moved the top court seeking contempt proceedings against the central government for its “wilful disobedience” in carrying out its direction to set up a Cauvery Management Board (CMB) and Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) as directed by the top court.
The Supreme Court by its February 16, 2018 verdict had slightly modified the 2007 Cauvery award and had directed the Centre to frame a scheme for its implementation by March 29.
Tamil Nadu had moved the top court on March 31.
At the same time, the central government too had moved the top court by filing a clarification petition and asking for three months for implementing its judgment in view of the May elections in Karnataka.
The top court had reduced Tamil Nadu’s share of Cauvery water from 177.25 thousand million cubic feet (TMC), which was less than 192 TMC allocated by a tribunal in 2007. Karnataka’s share of water was increased by 14.75 TMC.
Tamil Nadu Law Minister C V Shanmugham on Monday expressed satisfaction over the Supreme Court order in the Cauvery Water sharing dispute and said “good” will arise out of it.
“We believe good will arise out of today’s order,” he told reporters after the apex court ruling.
Replying to questions by reporters, he said he did not feel it would be a delaying factor.
Shanmugham said the contempt plea filed by the Tamil Nadu government was not done with a view to punishing anyone but to get the February 16 judgement implemented effectively.