Krishna water dispute: SC notice to Centre, A.P.

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 13. The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre and States of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra on an application from Karnataka to restrain the Andhra Pradesh Government from utilising the surplus water of Krishna river for executing the Telugu Ganga and Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) projects.

A Bench, comprising Mr. Justice G.B. Pattanaik and Mrs. Justice Ruma Pal, ordered the notice returnable in four weeks after a brief hearing from senior counsel, Mr. F.S. Nariman for Karnataka and Mr. K. Parasaran, for Andhra Pradesh.

The Solicitor General, Mr. Harish Salve, submitted to the court that though the apex court had delivered the judgment more than a year ago in the `Krishna water disputes case', none of the States had approached the Centre for setting up of a fresh tribunal to go into all the issues.

In its application, Karnataka submitted that it had filed a suit in the apex court questioning the legal authority of Andhra Pradesh in executing permanent and large-scale projects such as Telugu Ganga and SLBC to use the surplus water of 330 tmc available in the Krishna basin taking advantage of the `liberty clause' in the order passed by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal and the apex court gave its verdict on April 25, 2000. Karnataka contended that the apex court verdict was clear and unambiguous that large-scale and permanent irrigation projects could not be taken up and executed by Andhra Pradesh to utilise the surplus water of Krishna river.

However, despite the fact that the Centre had not cleared and approved the Telugu Ganga and the SLBC projects, the Andhra Pradesh Government was going ahead with the implementation of them, the petition contended.

It further submitted that the Centre had refused to interdict the Andhra Pradesh Government from going ahead with these projects. This had caused grave apprehensions in the minds of the people of Karnataka that the State's rights of sharing surplus water of Krishna river would be gravely endangered.

The applicant sought a direction to the Centre to instruct Andhra Pradesh to stop all the works in the two projects, which it contended, went against the judgment of the apex court.

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