Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami. Express Photo by Abhinav Saha
THE TAMIL Nadu government will move a contempt petition against the Centre if no steps are taken by the latter to resolve the Cauvery water dispute or will file a clarification application in the event an authority which is not a Cauvery Management Board (CMB) is set up. This was decided when officials from the state met with senior advocate Shekhar Naphade on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court set a six-week deadline in its February 2018 verdict for the Centre to formulate a scheme that should be framed “exclusively for the implementation of the Award” determined by it. “With the deadline set for March 29, the Tamil Nadu government is opting to wait and watch if the Centre responds in the next three days, before it moves court,” said a senior counsel who attended the meeting.
Earlier in the day, Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat, while announcing the poll dates for the Karnataka elections, had stated that the model code of conduct does not come in the way of resolving the Cauvery issue. “Whatever is the direction or the order of the honourable court and compliance thereof, Commission and MCC doesn’t come in the way,” he said.
With the Election Commission too giving its go ahead, the decision is now entirely with the Ministry of Water Resources to come up with a structure of the scheme that is laid down in the Supreme Court verdict.
Earlier this week, the Centre was mulling the options of approaching the court to ask for an extension on the deadline, and had also revealed its plans of a nine-member central body that would help resolve the issue.
The Centre is caught between the demands of Tamil Nadu and poll-bound Karnataka on the shape and function of the body. While Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are demanding a CMB, Karnataka sent a letter to Water Resources Secretary U P Singh, stating the ministry should not formulate a board but a two-layered “dispute resolution body”. Kerala filed a review petition on the usage of the water allocated to it.