No chairman for Cauvery Tribunal

The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal is now headless following the resignation of Justice B.S. Chauhan in March 2016 on his appointment as chairman of the law commission of India. The tribunal has now only two members N.S. Rao and Justice Agrawal. Applications filed by the Centre, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala seeking clarification on the final award passed by the Tribunal on February 5, 2007, allocating the quantum of water for each State is pending consideration. Highly placed sources told this correspondent that the Centre is not in a hurry to appoint a new chairman as it is contemplating constituting one five-member Tribunal to take up all water disputes among the various States. Once the tribunal is set up, the Cauvery tribunal will be wound up.

When the Tribunal met on July 10, 2007, the tribunal headed by Justice N.P. Singh had refused to hear the applications saying it would be improper to take up clarificatory applications when the Supreme Court had admitted special leave petitions filed by the three States. “We will not know which portion of the award will survive and whether our order will be modified or not,” the tribunal had said.

Subsequently when Justice Chauhan was appointed Chairman in 2014, the Tribunal met on few occasions but could not take up the applications due to the pendency of the appeals. Hence, the applications and court appeals have been pending for the last seven years. The Tribunal had determined the total availability of water in the Cauvery basin at 740 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) at lower Coleroon Anicut site and allocated 419 tmcft for Tamil Nadu (out of which 185 tmcft to be released by Karnataka to Mettur), 270 tmcft for Karnataka, 30 tmcft for Kerala and 7 tmcft to Puducherry.

As per the final award, Karnataka must release 182 tmcft as Tamil Nadu’s share at Bilingundlu gauging station and 10 tmcft for environmental purposes. From this, Tamil Nadu will release 7 tmcft to Puducherry. The States had filed clarificatory applications on this award. In its petition for taking up hearing of the clarificatory applications, Tamil Nadu said as the Supreme Court had not stayed the final award, there was no impediment for the Tribunal to address the pending applications.