New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) to hold a meeting within a week to decide the amount of Cauvery water required by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka which are fighting a legal battle over it.
A bench of justices DK Jain and Madan B Lokur asked the committee to meet as expeditiously as possible to decide the amount of water to be released to Tamil Nadu by Karnataka in view of delay on the part of Centre to notify the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award.
"We are of the view that CMC to hold meeting as expeditiously as possible but before January 11 to pass appropriate order regarding the requirement of water for standing crops in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka," the bench said.
"We also request CMC to also decide the question of shortfall, if any, in release of water by Karnataka," the bench said.
The court also pulled up the Centre for not notifying the tribunal`s award which it had assured to do by December 31 and had even asked the government to place before it all the relevant files regarding it.
It, however, refrained from passing such order after the Centre assured the apex court that it would take a decision on issuing notification by the end of this month. The state governments also said that they do not have any objection over the award being notified.
The bench posted the matter for further hearing to February 4.
Earlier on December 5, the Supreme Court had directed Karnataka to release 10,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily to its neighbouring state and asked the CMC to hold a meeting to decide the amount of water required by each state.
PTI
