SC reserves order on maintaibility of appeals against Cauvery award

New Delhi, Oct 19: The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its order on the maintaibility of appeals against an inter-state river water tribul award and observed that Article 262 of the Constitution doesn’t say that such award is so sacrosanct that the apex court can’t look into it.

“Prima facie, we feel that Article 262 does not say that the (river water) tribul award is so sacrosanct that the Supreme Court can’t look into it,” said a bench of Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Amitava Roy and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar.

The court said this as Kartaka, Tamil du and Kerala contested the Centre’s position that their appeals challenging the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribul award were not maintaible as under Article 262, read with Section 11 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, the top court was barred from hearing the appeals.

The court reserved its order and gave all the parties time till Monday to file their written submissions.

Section 11 bars the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court or any other court in water disputes referred to the Water Disputes Tribul.

Article 262 provides for the adjudication of disputes relating to use, distribution and control of waters of inter-state rivers or river valleys.

The Centre on Wednesday reiterated its stand that Article 262 and Section 11 eclipsed the Supreme Court jurisdiction to examine the tribul award on the river water disputes.

Assailing the Centre’s position, senior counsel Fali S. riman — appearing for Kartaka — said Clause (2) of the Article 136 explicitly says that the Supreme Court will not interfere with any “judgment, determition, sentence or order passed or made by any court or tribul constituted by or under any law relating to the Armed Forces”. (ians)