Supreme Court to Hear Karnataka’s Cauvery Water Appeal on Sep 14

Karnataka's appeal petition challenging the direction to release Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu is scheduled to come up before the Supreme Court on September 14, Minister N Chaluvaraya Swamy said on Friday.

Karnataka has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Cauvery Water Management Authority's direction to the state to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily to Tamil Nadu. 

The CWMA on Tuesday upheld the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee's recommendation directing Karnataka to ensure a flow of 6,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu for 15 days.

"The petition will come up for hearing (on Monday). The state government was compelled to continue releasing water to Tamil Nadu until that day based on the advice of legal experts, as directly approaching the court



in violation of the CWRC order could have jeopardised the petition," the state's Water Resources minister said.

Despite the acute water shortage in the state, the government was in a difficult position as it had to comply with court orders within the framework of the federal system, he said.

Over the last 20 years, this is the year when the least amount of water has been released to Tamil Nadu. Even during similarly difficult situations in the past, there have been instances where 35 TMC of water was released," the minister was quoted as saying by his office in a release. 

Chaluvaraya Swamy said the government had always been committed to protecting farmers' interests, adding that the state's officials and legal team were presenting strong arguments before the court.