Telangana plea posted for April 19

The Supreme Court on Wednesday posted for April 19 the Telangana government’s plea for a fresh consideration of allocation of Krishna river water among all four riparian States — Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Appearing before a Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra, senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan, for Telangana, submitted that the bifurcation of unified Andhra mandated that the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal should re-hear the case on allocation of the river water taking into consideration the separate rights of the newly-formed Telangana. Bench’s stance Earlier, another Bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Madan B. Lokur had categorically refused — without prejudice to any other writ or special leave petitions filed by Telangana in the Supreme Court — to interfere with the decision of the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal–II to confine the question of re-allocation of river water, post the bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, to the two successor States of Telangana and Andhra and not all the four riparian States. The tribunal had decided that the details of the re-distribution would be decided as per the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Act of 2014 by an apex council headed by top officials. The Bench explicitly told Telangana that it would not want to go into the entire award of the tribunal nor delve into a fresh consideration of the water dispute. The State argued that Parliament was “conscious of the injustice” caused to Telangana. Source : The Hindu