Guest Column: Too much of ignorance is behind defiance of the Supreme Court order

Is the Chief Minister of Karnataka or his Cabinet a party in the Cauvery Water Dispute before the Supreme Court? No. Instead, the officers who should comply with the direction of the Supreme Court are the Chief Secretary of Karnataka and the Principal Secretary of the Irrigation Department (officers) – they are the parties before the Supreme Court.

The Order of the Supreme Court binds these officers to act as stated in the Order. These officers have no business to ask the Chief Minister or the Cabinet on whether they should comply with or defy the Order of the Supreme Court.

A special session of the Legislature has been convened to debate about this issue. A legislature has absolute freedom to speak its mind and say anything it pleases. It may even severely criticize a judgment of a Court.

However, it too cannot legally direct the Chief Secretary or the Irrigation Secretary to defy the Order of the Supreme Court. Even if it issues such a direction through a resolution, such a resolution would have no legal validity and these Officers will be entitled to ignore it wholly.

Does the legislature incur contempt by its criticism of a Court judgment or by directing these officers to defy the Supreme Court’s Order? No. As said earlier, the legislature enjoys near absolute freedom of speech. What about officers who refuse to abide by such a direction of the legislature? Do they incur contempt of the legislature? Yes. The legislature could even imprison them for disobeying its direction.

However, the Supreme Court would instantly intervene in such a situation and protect the officers who have incurred contempt of the legislature merely because they were complying with the Order of the Supreme Court.

The Chief Secretary or the Irrigation Secretary are not expected to take instruction from any person on whether they should abide by a binding Order of the Supreme Court. In fact, they could even be hauled up for not having released to Tamil Nadu water over the past few days.

However, these officers could be temporarily excused from complying with the Supreme Court Order only if 1) the State Government of the legislature comes out with a new ordinance or a legislation to say that the State’s irrigation interest is paramount and will override any judicial order that adversely affects its water interests and 2) such an Ordinance or Bill is assented to by the Governor of Karnataka.

Needless to say, such an Ordinance or legislation would be wholly unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court may not take more than an hour to strike it down. Still, during the subsistence of such an ordinance or legislation, these officers would be legally excused from complying with the Supreme Court’s Order.

The author is an Advocate at the Supreme Court.