Thursday, January 5 2006 16:39 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (Jan 05, 2006) pulled up the Centre for its failure to provide infrastructure for the functioning of Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal, which was set up to settle the issue of surplus water allocation between riparian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

"This is nothing new. They (Centre) want to delay the matter and put the blame on judiciary. They must give proper staff and infrastructure," a Bench comprising Justice B N Agarwal and Justice A K Mathur said issuing notice to Ministry of Water Resources and Urban Development Ministry.

The court also sought response from Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra Government on the petition filed by Karnataka alleging that the Tribunal is non-functional even after a year and half of its constitution and that delay in proceedings has resulted in unrest among the farmers and other inhabitants including religious leaders of the State.

Maintaining that delay in Tribunal's proceeding would ultimately delay allocation of surplus water of inter-State river Krishna and its valley, Karnataka said farmers and others have already started pressing for construction of the projects to use the surplus water for irrigation and drinking water needs.

"In a recent incident the religious leaders went on strike in Jewargi town to pressurise Government to take up Mullabal Lift Irrigation Scheme to irrigate un-served areas by utilising 8.2 tmc of surplus waters of river Krishna," the petition said.

Karnataka said pursuant to the complaints filed by three states on the issue, the Centre on April 2, 2004 issued notification for constituting the Tribunal which held its first sitting on May 19 last year but after that no proceedings took place as neither the office nor the court room were made ready for holding the proceedings. It said due to lack of infrastructure the application against Andhra Pradesh from continuing with the alleged illegal construction of permanent projects to commit surplus water was pending consideration before the Tribunal without any order for the last six months.

Karnataka claimed that the project undertaken by the Andhra Pradesh Government was contrary to the observations of the apex court judgement of April 25, 2000.

Under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, neither the Supreme Court nor any other court has or can exercise jurisdiction in respect of any Water dispute referred to a Tribunal.