Can there be concepts like 'Karnataka Cauvery Water' and 'Tamil Nadu Cauvery Water'? Supreme Court to decide

The Supreme Court on Tuesday framed issues for consideration in the original suit filed by the Karnataka government over sharing of Cauvery river water with its neighbouring states. (State of Karnataka v. State of Tamil Nadu and ors).A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan framed the following questions after hearing senior lawyers who appeared for Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.1. Whether the Suit is barred by Section 11 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 read with Article 262(2) of the Constitution of India?2. Whether the Suit is barred by principles of Res Judicata? 3. Whether the plaintiff is entitled to commit, enjoy or utilise “Karnataka Cauvery Water” as defined in paragraph 6(a) of the Plaint? 4. Whether defendant Nos.1 and 3 are not entitled to commit, enjoy or utilise any water in the Cauvery basin in addition to “Tamil Nadu Cauvery Water” as defined in paragraph 6(b) of the Plaint? 5. Whether the Suit premised on the bifurcation of waters of River Cauvery as “Karnataka Cauvery Water” and “Tamil Nadu Cauvery Water” is at all maintainable? 6. Whether the projects sought to be undertaken by the first defendant prejudicially affect the rights and interests of the plaintiff-State? 7. Whether the Suit is at all maintainable in the absence of existence of any cause of action? 8. What relief, if any?.The Court granted the parties six weeks to file relevant documents, and listed the case for hearing on May 7 for directions..The Bench was hearing an application filed by the Karnataka government for directions to restrain Tamil Nadu from executing the South Vellar project which would divert surplus water of the Cauvery..Supreme Court judge Justice Aravind Kumar, who hails from Karnataka, had in January recused from hearing the case..The dispute over the Cauvery river water between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu dates back to two agreements in 1892 and 1924 between the erstwhile Madras Presidency and the Princely State of Mysore.After several rounds of failed negotiations, the Supreme Court directed the constitution of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, which gave its award in 2007, allowing Tamil Nadu to draw a fixed amount of water every day.However, the dispute continued after both states filed petitions to review the decision.In 2016, Tamil Nadu again petitioned the Supreme Court after Karnataka submitted that it had no more water to share from its reservoir. Subsequently, the top court had asked the Central government to constitute a Cauvery Management Board (CMB).In February 2018, the Supreme Court observed that water bodies are national assets and that no one state could claim exclusive rights over them..Last year, a three-judge bench of the Court was called upon to decide on an application by the Tamil Nadu government to increase its current share of Cauvery river water from 5,000 to 7,200 cusecs (cubic feet per second) per day.In its plea, the Tamil Nadu government had claimed that Karnataka had "changed its stand" and had released a reduced quantum of 8,000 cusecs of water as against the 15,000 cusecs that was agreed upon earlier.In a counter-affidavit, the Karnataka government told the Supreme Court that the Tamil Nadu government's plea was misconceived since there was a distress condition prevailing due to the failure of the monsoons. Further, it claimed that Tamil Nadu had misused the carry-over storage of water by drawing 69.777 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) excessively.A three-judge bench of Justices BR Gavai, PS Narasimha and Prashant Kumar Mishra eventually opined that it was not inclined to interfere with the order passed on this aspect by the Cauvery Water Management Authority, particularly since the authority was monitoring the situation every fifteen days..Since then, the top court has been hearing various applications by the concerned state governments in the matter.Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have another water-sharing dispute pending before the apex court concerning the Pennaiyar river. The Tamil Nadu government has filed an original suit in the matter against the Karnataka government and the Central government..Senior Advocates Shyam Divan, Mohan V Katarki and RS Ravi, with Advocate General Shashi Kiran Shetty and Advocates VN Raghupathy, Govind Manoharan, Sudipto Sircar, Mayank Jain, Adithya Bhat and Adoorya Bomakka Harish represented the Karnataka government.Senior Additional Advocate General V Krishnamurthy, Senior Advocates G Umapathy, P Wilson and NR Elango, with Advocate D Kumanan appeared for the State of Tamil Nadu.Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta with Advocates Jishnu ML, Priyanka Prakash, Beena Prakash, Anoop R and G Prakash appeared for the Kerala government.Senior Advocate CS Vaidyanathan with Advocates Aravindh S, Ekta Muyal, Kavita and Arun Goel appeared for the Puducherry administration.Advocates Pranay Ranjan, Gurmeet Singh Makker, Ishaan Sharma, Veer Vikrant Singh, Aaditya Dixit and Pratyush Shrivastav appeared for the Union Jal Shakti Ministry..[Read order]