New Delhi

SC notice to Centre, A.P. on State’s plea on tribunal

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh on a petition from Karnataka for a declaration that the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal should be deemed to have been set up only from the date on which it starting functioning and not the date of notification of constitution of the tribunal.

A Bench of Justice B.N. Agrawal and Justice H.S. Bedi issued notice after hearing senior counsel Fali Nariman, appearing for Karnataka that though the tribunal was notified on April 2, 2004, it did not commence functioning for over two and half years owing to lack of infrastructure.

Important questions had to be decided in this matter, he said. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on September 19.

In its petition, Karnataka said that since the tribunal adjudicating the dispute among the States of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra effectively started functioning only from August 2006, it should have a tenure of three years up to August 2009 so that it could complete its work and submit its report.

However, as per the present schedule, the tribunal could function only till October 1 and thereafter for six months up to March 31 2009.

The petition said that if the actual date of functioning of the tribunal was taken as August 2006, it could function till 2009 with powers of the Centre to extend by two more years.

It sought a direction to the Union Government to treat the starting point of the tribunal as August 2006 and not April 2004.

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