Cauvery water dispute: SC pulls up PMO officials

The Supreme Court Monday expressed displeasure over the PMO officials' failure to hold a meeting of the committee, headed by the Prime Minister, to resolve 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 had not been held till now as the PMO officials had been seeking convenient dates from the committee members, which includes the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry.

The Bench observed whether "the Prime Minister is 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 remarked and adjourned the matter to Friday, September 7.

The court had earlier asked the government to convene a meeting of the committee to resolve the dispute.

The Centre on August 30 had told the apex court that it would soon convene a meeting of the Cauvery River Authority (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 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 apex court for a direction to the Centre for convening the CRA meeting immediately to perform its statutory obligations and approve the distress-sharing formula evolved by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee for sharing of flows of the river Cauvery in view of the prevailing "distress" situation in Tamil Nadu.

... contd.

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