Cauvery water sharing dispute: Supreme Court set to deliver verdict today

New Delhi: All eyes are on the Supreme Court as it's likely to deliver a verdict in the decades-old Cauvery water dispute between the neighbouring states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra will pronounce the verdict on the appeals filed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala against the 2007 order of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT) on sharing of water.

The bench had reserved its order on the matter on September 20, 2017.

The state governments in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Puducherry had filed petitions seeking modification of Cauvery Tribunal's final order.

The dispute dates back to the Madras-Mysore agreements of 1924. 

It was in 1990, when the Centre created a tribunal to examine the conflict and address the water shortage.

The CWDT had unanimously passed an order on how the water should be shared between the states after determining the total availability of water in the Cauvery basin.

The apex court during the period of trials had passed several orders directing the Karnataka Government to provide a certain amount of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.

The situation became tense between the states when the top court on September 5, 2016, had directed Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of water daily for a period of 10 days to Tamil Nadu.

Succumbing to political pressure and the wave of public protests, the Karnataka government had then filed a plea to modify the order.

A week after its previous order, the Supreme Court had made modifications and asked Karnataka to release 12,000 cusecs Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu till September 20.

Karnataka refused to release any water, citing its own requirements and low water availability due to scanty rainfall.

On October 18, 2016, the Supreme Court had asked Karnataka to release 2000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu till further orders.

On January 9, 2017, the Tamil Nadu Government had sought a compensation of Rs 2,480 crore from Karnataka for not releasing water to the state despite getting the Supreme Court directive to do so. 

(With ANI inputs)