Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed Karnataka to release 10,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu from Cauvery river for the next five days.
The apex court bench of Justice DK Jain and Justice Madan B Lokur further asked Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) to meet either on Thursday or Friday to decide on the quantum of water that Karnataka would be releasing to Tamil Nadu after five days.
The court said the authority would also keep in mind the standing crops in the lower riparian state.
The case will now be heard on Monday.
On December 03, both the states had traded charges and refused to come to any agreement during the hour-long hearing.
The court heard a batch of petitions and application filed by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on the release of 9,000 cusecs of water daily from Cauvery for the latter.
The Cauvery River Authority headed by the Prime Minister in an interim award on September 19 had directed Karnataka to release 9,000 cusecs of Cauvery water every day.
Resuming his arguments, senior counsel Anil Divan, appearing for Karnataka, questioned the maintainability of the application by Tamil Nadu in its present form.
Tamil Nadu earlier sought to give a political colour to the whole issue when it alleged that with its eyes on Karnataka Assembly Election next year, the central government may not push Karnataka to release water for Tamil Nadu as directed by the authority.
Tamil Nadu on Tuesday had contended that its standing crops would perish if Cauvery water was not released immediately.
During the earlier hearing on November 26, the court had asked the Chief Ministers of the two states to meet and arrive at an amicable solution to the "sensitive" Cauvery water dispute.
However, the talks between Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had failed to break the deadlock on the Cauvery water-sharing row.
(With Agency inputs)
