Date:24/04/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/04/24/stories/2006042406681100.htm

Opinion - News Analysis

Some questions for the Cauvery Tribunal

Ramaswamy R. Iyer

If the Tribunal is indeed unable to discharge the task entrusted to it, why did it not say so much earlier?

AT A time when we were expecting that the Cauvery Tribunal, after all these years, might soon come out with its final order, the reports that appeared in the media on Saturday morning can only be described as shocking. They are disturbing in two ways.

First, the Tribunal seems to be a divided house. This is very unfortunate. If the Tribunal eventually comes out with a divided report, that would make a bad situation worse. Secondly, it is very strange that after 16 years of hearings and the accumulation of voluminous documentation, the Tribunal (or two of its members) should find it necessary to ask the Government of India to set up a Committee to go into basics such as crop water requirements. Those basics were precisely what the Tribunal was supposed to determine.

The courts deal with many cases involving complex and technical matters all the time: contractual questions, issues of medical ethics, property matters, industrial disputes, and so on. In all cases involving technicalities, should the courts ask for the establishment of expert committees? Is the Tribunal saying that it is incapable of understanding the arguments and documentation submitted to it, even with the assistance of the two Technical assessors attached to it? Would that not amount to a confession of failure?

Other Tribunals (Krishna, Godavari, Narmada) have been able to deal with the disputes referred to them. If the Cauvery Tribunal is indeed unable to discharge the task entrusted to it, why did it not say so much earlier? Why did it take 16 years to declare its inability? Whether the Tribunal is legally entitled to ask the Government of India to set up an expert committee is a matter that I leave to the lawyers. Will that Committee report back to the Tribunal? Will the Tribunal then be able to understand the Committee's report, or will it need help from another Committee for that purpose? Will the Tribunal, assuming that it understands the Committee's report, be willing then to take a decision of its own, or will it merely convert the Committee's findings into an Order? Is the tribunal then in effect transferring the responsibility of adjudication entrusted to it to another body?

The difficulties that the process of adjudication has so far been running into could be attributed to other agencies. Now it appears that the Tribunal itself is seriously damaging that process. Cry, the beloved country!