Cauvery water: SC pulls up PMO

Sep 04, 2012 - Ridhima Malhotra |

New Delhi

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The Supreme Court on Monday expressed displeasure over failure of the Prime Minister’s Office to hold a meeting for resolution of the Cauvery water-sharing dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

A bench of Justices D.K. Jain and Madan B. Lokur expressed surprise when it was told that the meeting of the Cauvery River Authority (CRA), headed by the Prime Minister, had not been held till now. The bench was informed that the PMO officials had been seeking convenient dates from the committee members, which includes the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry.

“Is the Prime Minister to see his own convenience or that of others... Sometimes we are short of words when it involves the highest functionary of the government,” the bench said and adjo-urned the matter to Septe-mber 7. The court had earlier asked the government to convene a meeting of the panel to resolve the dispute.

The Centre had on August 30 told the apex court that it would soon convene a meeting of the CRA headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to consider Tamil Nadu’s plea for release of 25.373 tmfct of water from Cauvery river to save the state’s standing crops. In its affidavit, the Centre had said that it had written to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry on the proposed meeting for their consent as the meeting was subject to the availability of the quorum.

Once the consents of the states are obtained, the date would be fixed for the same, the Centre had stated. On August 13, Tamil Nadu had made a plea to the SC for a direction to the Centre for convening the CRA meeting immediately.

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