Cauvery dispute

Protracted proceedings on Cauvery dispute


THE CAUVERY Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) is in the news for wrong reasons. The tribunal, in a majority decision, recently passed an order directing the Central government to appoint a 3-member experts committee to study the crop pattern and water requirements of the co-basin States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry and submit a report to help the tribunal in making decisions.

After 16 years of its existence, the tribunal's need to seek expert opinion now shocked the contesting States as they were expecting the award by August when the present term of the tribunal would end. The States made submissions against this order pointing out that the recourse to such a step would further delay the award. Hence the tribunal on May 10 decided that the Assessors' Report would be circulated to them for their response to facilitate a final decision.
As of now, the tribunal, assisted by two technical assessors, has held over 570 days of hearings and perused hundreds of documents on the Cauvery dispute. Hence the present direction asking the States to furnish their response to the Assessors' Report is likely to create more controversies now and bad precedents for tribunals to be set up later on.
In the past, tribunals depended on assessors' reports to pronounce the awards. Further the present development would certainly protract the proceedings and delay the tribunal award.
The questions being raised now are whether the tribunal is justified in seeking responses to the Assessors' Report and whether after the receipt of States' comments, the tribunal would still need the views of an expert committee to advise it to finalise the award. Queries may also be raised as to why there are no time limits prescribed for the tribunal.
Experience of the functioning of various water dispute tribunals indicates that a long time is taken by the Central government to constitute any tribunal and even then, the award is pronounced after many days of hearings. Even after the award is announced, problems of interpretation arise and there is no mechanism to enforce the binding character of the award. The matter is also taken to courts on issues other than water allocation, further delaying for years the implementation of the award and the projects involved.
Troubled start
The history of the CWDT indicates that it had a troubled start. Though Tamil Nadu had requested the Centre to set up a tribunal in 1986 under the provisions of the Inter-State Water Disputes (ISWD) Act, 1956, it took four years and a direction of the Supreme Court to establish the CWDT in 1990 since Karnataka had serious reservations on adjudication in this case. A further dispute arose in 1991 when the tribunal gave an interim award directing Karnataka to release 205 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of water annually to Tamil Nadu and in response Karnataka promulgated an ordinance nullifying the interim award.
Resenting this action, Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court seeking its direction to implement the tribunal's orders. The apex court referred the matter to a Constitution Bench. However, before the Bench could give a ruling on the matter, the Central government, in response to queries by the apex court, came up with the "Cauvery Waters (Implementation of the Order of 1991 and all subsequent related orders of the Tribunal) Scheme, 1998" and notified it in August 1998. Consequently, Tamil Nadu withdrew the petition pending before the Constitution Bench.
The tribunal is well within its rights to seek advice or opinion on the matters referred to it and can decide the procedure needed for the purpose. However, by allowing the Assessors' Report for further scrutiny by the States, the tribunal has permitted this well studied document to be dragged into a controversy since the requirements assessed in the report are likely to be much below the demands made by the States and the States would certainly question the approach/methodology adopted in the report. Any controversy on the report would force the tribunal to get the views of an outside expert committee, thereby resulting in further delays.

(The Hindu, dated 21st May,2006)