The Supreme Court would be taking up next Monday (09th April) the Govt. of Tamil Nadu’s ‘contempt of Court’ petition against the Centre with regard to the setting up of Cauvery Management Board (CMB).

Tamil Nadu’s PWD Secretary and Cauvery Technical Committee chairman filed a ‘contempt of Court’ petition against the BJP-led centre last Saturday (31st March) on the State’s behalf stating that the Centre hadn’t heeded the Supreme Court’s instructions (contained in its February 16 verdict) to set up a CMB within six weeks of the verdict.

The petition names the Union Cabinet Secretary and Union Water Resources Secretary as the ‘offenders’ in this regard.  However, the petition might already have become irrelevant in the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s assertion yesterday that it didn’t mean the setting up of a CMB by the word ‘scheme’ in its above-stated verdict but only referred to an ‘action plan’ to be put in place to supervise water-sharing arrangements.

Govt. of Tamil Nadu’s counsel Umapathy told the apex Court yesterday that the word ‘scheme’ had created all sorts of confusion as it was interpreted in many ways.  In his response, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said that the issue on hand was only merely about setting up a CMB but to permanently resolve the water-needs of the concerned States.

The CJI also assured that Tamil Nadu would surely get its fair share of Cauvery water and that the Court would make absolutely foolproof provisions to ensure this.