New Delhi, February 18 The Supreme Court on Wednesday commenced the final hearing of a petition related to the Centre's 2023 notification, which initiated a fresh reference under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act concerning the Krishna river water-sharing dispute between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi heard the initial arguments from the petitioner, who contends that the Centre's move is "unconstitutional" and bypasses existing legal frameworks.
A senior counsel representing the petitioner argued that the Krishna water division is already governed by the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act (APRA), 2014.
Under Section 89 of the APRA, a specific mechanism was established to divide the 811 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water, originally allocated to undivided Andhra Pradesh by the first Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT-I) in the 1970s, between the two successor states.
It was argued that while proceedings under the APRA were nearing a final conclusion, the Centre's October 6, 2023, notification introduced a "further reference" under the general Inter-State River Water Disputes Act.
This undermined the specialized scheme of the Reorganisation Act, the counsel said.
"We are now only talking about the division of waters between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Maharashtra and Karnataka have already been excluded from this reference, an issue that has attained finality," the counsel submitted, adding that an executive notification cannot override a statutory mechanism.
The dispute over Krishna water has seen decades of litigation. While KWDT-I fixed the 75 percent dependable flow, a second tribunal (KWDT-II) later reassessed the flows, though its award remains unnotified and subject to Supreme Court challenges.
The bench has listed the matter for further hearing next Wednesday.