Supreme Court dismisses plea of Telangana to redraw Krishna plan

Hyderabad: In a severe setback to the Telangana state government, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed its special leave petition (SLP) seeking quashing of the Justice Brijesh Kumar Tribunal verdict that limited fresh allotment of Krishna waters to TS and Andhra Pradesh without extending it to other two riparian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Prafulla C. Pant observed that since the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-2 (KWDT-2) had dealt with all issues, there was no point in directing reopening of the case.

The verdict means that TS and AP will have to share the 1,004 tmc ft of water that was allotted to undivided AP in 2013. The only option left with the state is to return to the Justice Brijesh Kumar Tribunal and seek its share in Krishna waters, along with AP.

The bench heard senior counsels representing TS, Maharashtra and Karnataka before dismissing the petition. Karnataka and Maharashtra, which were against a fresh review of the KWDT-2 Award had filed caveats before the Supreme Court, in December 2016. Senior TS government counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan said that it was the only authority that could do justice to the state, which was deprived of its share in the Krishna waters and subjected to discrimination by the erstwhile AP government. It was that bone of contention that led to formation of a separate state, he said.

Tribunal erred on preliminary issues: Telangana
In its SLP, the TS government argued that the tribunal had failed to appreciate the fact that Parliament under Articles 3 and 4 of the Constitution had made a direct reference to the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-2 under Section-89 of Act 6 of 2014.

Such a reference cannot be treated as one referable to Sections 12 and 5(3) of the Inter-State River Water Disp-utes  Act, 1956, it said.

It said the tribunal had erred in answering preliminary issues 3, 4 and 5 by interpreting Section 89 of Act 6 of 2014 as not encompassing the four riparian states and confining it only to the two successor states, AP and TS. It stated that the tribunal had failed to appreciate the fact that the language in the references did not restrict their scope and ambit to the two states.

“On the contrary, viewed in the context of the basin as a single hydrological unit in view of the nature and scope of references, it is necessary to have uniform basis of allocation by involving all the four riparian states, the SLP said.

The government said that the tribunal had misconstrued its submission that if project-wise specific allocation is confined to the lower riparian states, the advantage of en bloc allocation to the upper riparian states would give them scope to construct new projects - projects which were considered not worthy by the KWDT-I — giving scope for utilisation of more waters and thereby denying the lower riparian states their legitimate and equitable share.

It said that the tribunal had failed to take note that an operational protocol for project-wise release in the event of deficit flows could be meaningfully achieved when viewed in the context of the basin as a single hydrological unit. The flow pattern in the basin where lower riparian states are totally dependent on the flows from upstream made it necessary to involve upper riparian states, the TS government had contended.