New Delhi: The Cauvery water-sharing row between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will head to the Supreme Court on Friday. It will hear the contempt case filed by the Tamil Nadu government against Karnataka. This comes after the Jagadish Shettar government in Karnataka refused to release 9,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily to Tamil Nadu despite the Supreme Court's order, citing storage problem at the Krishanaraja Sagar Dam.
The five crest gates of Krishanaraja Sagar (KRS) reservoir in Mandya, about 80 km from Bangalore, through which Cauvery water was being released to Tamil Nadu were shut by Karnataka. Hundreds of farmers gathered at the reservoir to try to prevent water release raised slogans welcoming the stoppage when Janata Dal-Secular legislator CS Puttaraju, who had led them, confirmed that water flow had stopped. Earlier, Karnataka Law Minister S Suresh Kumar told reporters in New Delhi that senior counsel Fali Nariman representing the state had informed the Supreme Court that the state was in no position to release the water from Monday night.
There was no comment from the court on this submission nor did Tamil Nadu advocates raise objection to it, he said. The submission was made when the Supreme Court was hearing Karnataka's plea to immediately allow the state to stop water release to Tamil Nadu. Karnataka moved the court as it had on September 28 pulled it up for not obeying the September 19 ruling of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as head of Cauvery River Authority (CRA) that it should release 9,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu from September 20 to October 15.
Karnataka began releasing water on September 29 which had led to daily protests in Bangalore and Cauvery basin districts of Mandya, Mysore and Chamarajanagar - 80 km, 130 km and about 200 km respectively from Bangalore. Karnataka had also been pleading with the prime minister to review and stay his ruling.
Comments
0 comment