Telangana government may fight lone battle for Krishna river waters
SC senior counsel explained to govt that apex court may direct it back to Tribunal as it was an inter-state river dispute.
Hyderabad: After hearing the pros and cons presented by Supreme Court senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan over follow up action on the Justice Brijesh Kumar Tribunal verdict on Section 89 of the AP Reorganisation Act, a Cabinet subcommittee looking into the matter on Saturday couldn’t come to any conclusion and decided to meet again in the first week of November.
The tribunal had ruled that Section 89 was limited to the Krishna waters issue between TS and AP, and did not cover Kar-nataka and Maharashtra.
The subcommittee headed by irrigation minister T. Harish Rao, ministers T. Nageswara Rao, Jupally Krishna Rao and G. Jagadish Reddy held a three-hour meeting with Mr Vaidyanathan, irrigation special chief secretary S.K. Joshi, irrigation adviser R. Vidyasagar and other engineering officials at the Secretariat.
There was no official communiqué on the outcome of the meeting.
Informed sources told this newspaper that Mr Vaidyanathan explained to the subcommittee that it would be difficult for the state government to approach the Supreme Court as long as the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal was in vogue and seized of the issue of distributing 1,005 tmc ft water between TS and AP, allotted to undivided AP by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal in 2013.
He appeared to have observed that there might be a chance of the apex court advising the state government to approach the tribunal and effectively argue its cae to get its share of the Krishna waters as the inter-state dispute tribunal was the place to do so.
He appeared to have observed that the government may prefer an appeal before the Supreme Court for speedy disposal of the special leave petition filed by the state government, which is pending. Till such time the state government could seek a stay on the Brijesh Tribunal verdict on Section 89.
The chances of getting a stay are only 50 per cent. The subcommittee appea-red to have been told by senior counsel that since there was already a stay on implementation of the KWDT-2 award, the state government could intervene in the litigation in case Karnataka and Maharashtra preferred a vacation petition on the issue.
The subcommittee also noted that the AP government did not seem inclined to go against the Brijesh Tribunal’s verdict as it felt there was no great injustice done to the state. In such a case the TS government should be prepared for a lone battle. After this, the ministers in the subcommittee met separately and dispersed before deciding to meet again in first week of November.