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posted by: Kavya Mishra
Last updated: Jul 05, 2023 at 7:44pm IST
Supreme Court of India. (File photo/Reuters)
On May 2, the Supreme Court granted the Center one month to form the Pennaiyar Water Disputes Tribunal and issue the relevant Gazette Notice.
The two High Court judges, Justices AS Bopanna and MM Sundresh on Wednesday, recused themselves from hearing a case related to the dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the sharing of the waters of the Pinaiyar River over the land they brought from these two states respectively.
Once the matter came to the hearing, the justices said they wanted to recuse themselves from the case because they belonged to the disputing states.
In a lighter vein, the judges said, “If we start hearing this case, we may start fighting over the dispute” and ordered that the matter be brought before the Chief Justice of India D. Y. Chandrachod for inclusion before a judicial body of which they are not a part.
Justice Bhopana hails from Karnataka and Justice Sundreesh is from Tamil Nadu. The Jal Shakti Ministry, in a brief affidavit filed in the suit filed by Tamil Nadu in 2018, said that a proposal to form a Pennayar Water Disputes Tribunal under the Interstate Water Disputes Act 1956 had been submitted to the Cabinet Secretariat for consideration and approval by the union cabinet.
The affidavit stated: “It is recognized that the trade union cabinet has not yet taken a final decision in this regard.”
On 2 May, the Supreme Court gave the Center one month to form the Pennaiyar Water Disputes Tribunal and issue the relevant Gazette Notice. In December last year, the Supreme Court gave the center three months to set up a court to resolve the dispute.
The Tamil Nadu state government had moved the High Court through the original case against Karnataka over the work being done on the dams and diversions on the river.
She said that the water in an interstate river is considered a national treasure and no country can claim an exclusive right to it.
The Government of Tamil Nadu said that the 1892 Convention on River Waters is binding on the states parties and Karnataka, without giving any details about the nature of the construction work they are doing, and without getting the consent of the riparian state, it cannot be allowed to proceed with the erection of check dams and the creation of diversions.
(This story was not edited by the News18 staff and was published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
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