Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa chaired a review meeting with her senior cabinet colleagues and officials here to discuss the situation and directed them to file the plea.
"In order to ensure that Tamil Nadu gets its due share of water, the Chief Minister has directed to file a contempt petition against Karntaka government which has unilaterally stopped releasing water, amounting to dishonouring the Supreme Court verdict," an official release here said.
The move by Karnataka also impeded the federal structure of the country, it said.
Karnataka had last night stopped release of water from the Krishna Raja Sagar dam citing depleted storage, hours after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it clear only the CRA can review its order directing the state to release 9,000 cusecs to Tamil Nadu.
The apex court had earlier endorsed the CRA ruling asking the upper riparian state to release 9000 cusecs from September 20-October 15, a decision contested by both states, locked in the decades-long Cauvery dispute.