Sharing of Krishna water; SC to hear pleas of states on Oct 15

The Supreme Court today fixed for final hearing on October 15 a batch of petitions filed by Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra relating to a row over distribution of Krishna river water among them.
Newly-created Telangana has sought to be considered as an entity separate from Andhra Pradesh in the distribution of Krishna water among the stakeholder states. It has also sought fresh determination of the share of Krishna water.
A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant fixed the petitions for hearing on October and made clear to the states that it would not adjourn the proceedings on that day as the issue needed urgent disposal.

Senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, representing Telangana, also sought a direction to the Centre to set up a statutory tribunal to determine its share of the Krishna river water.
He also said that a fresh reference was required to be sent to the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal II for fresh allocation of water in view of passage of the Reorganisation of the State of Andhra Pradesh Act.
Taking note of the plea of Telangana, the court said that it seemed that its request had got "independent character qua Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh" even though the tribunal had passed its award in December 2010.

It said that one of the questions to be considered was whether the quantity of water already allocated to Andhra Pradesh could be demarcated between Andhra Pradesh and Telanagana or Telangana could get separate allocations.
The court, however, kept all the issues the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act of 1956 open for consideration.
Earlier, the court had said that the inter-state water disputes "should be put to rest at the earliest.