NEW DELHI: The Cauvery Water Tribunal award under which Tamil Nadu will get 192 tmcft of water from Karnataka was on Friday challenged before the Supreme Court on the ground that Bangalore city would be deprived of its drinking water.
The petition filed by Cauvery Water Association, Bangalore, against the February five award came for hearing before a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran, which posted the hearing for Monday.
The court did not hear the matter and decided that it would be listed before a Bench of which Justice Raveendran would not be a part.
The Association has sought a direction that the Centre should not notify the award in gazette.
The award was to come into operation from the date it is notified by the Central government under the Inter-State Water Disputes Act.
After 16 years of its constitution, the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal on February 5, had given its final verdict.
The three-member Tribunal headed by Justice N P Singh had determined the utilisable quantum of waters in the basin at 740 tmcft of which Tamil Nadu share would be 419 tmcft, Karnataka 270, Kerala 30 and Puducherry seven.
The Tribunal set up by the National Front government in 1990 gave its interim award the following year under which Tamil Nadu was given 205 tmcft of water.
This was contested by Karnataka which had made a law to nullify the award but the Supreme Court upheld it.
The Tribunal had ordered that Karnataka should make monthly deliveries out of the 192 tmcft to Tamil Nadu during a normal year at the inter-state point identified as Billigundlu gauge and discharage station located on the common border.
Under the monthly schedule, Tamil Nadu would get in June (10 tmcft), July (34), August (50), September (40), October (22), November (15), December (8), January (3) and February, March, April and May (2.5 each).
The Tribunal had said the monthly releases shall be broken in ten daily intervals by the Regulatory Authority which shall properly monitor the working of the schedule with the help of the states concerned and the Central Water Commission for five years.
Any modification /or adjustment in the schedule may be worked out in consultation with the party states with the help of CWC for future adoption without changing the annual allocation among the parties, the tribunal had said.
