Supreme Court to conduct day-to-day hearing on Cauvery Water Dispute

Supreme Court on Wednesday said that it will conduct day-to-day hearing on the appeals filed by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala against the 2007 award of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT) on sharing of water.

Reiterating the October 18, 2016 order, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar said that it will remain effective till further orders and fixed the pleas on the vexatious dispute for final hearing on February 7.

The apex court on October 18, had directed Karnataka to keep releasing 2000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu till further orders.

While the apex court on December 9 upheld the maintainability of appeals filed by the riparian states, saying it has the "jurisdiction to decide the parameters, scope, authority and jurisdiction of the tribunal".

ALSO READ: (Cauvery Water Dispute: SC upholds maintainability of appeals by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala)

Earlier, the Court had said that it will only hear the arguments related to the ground reality report filed by Supervisory Committee after looking into the issue of maintainability of appeals filed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala against the award of tribunal.

Centre, on the other hand had raised a preliminary objection claiming that the CWDT award amounted to a final decree in the dispute and the apex court had no jurisdiction to hear appeals against the award of the tribunal.

States however, contended that their appeals were maintainable saying the Supreme Court had the jurisdiction to adjudicate the appeals filed by the states against the award of tribunal and that no statute can take away the appellate powers of the apex court under Article 136 of the Constitution.

With PTI Inputs