hyderabad
The Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II has turned down the request of Andhra Pradesh to postpone the proceedings on the reference made by the Ministry of Jal Shakti under Section 3 of Inter-State River Water Disputes Act on October 6 for adjudication of water shares of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana from out of the undivided share of 811 tmcft to combined Andhra Pradesh.
The Tribunal chaired by Justice Brijesh Kumar along with Members Justice S. Talapatra and Justice Ram Mohan Reddy heard the submissions made by senior counsel for Andhra Pradesh Jaideep Gupta and C.S. Vaidyanathan for Telangana on Wednesday and directed the parties to file their statement of case and response to the reference made by Ministry of Jal Shakti within six weeks. They were also told to file the reply to the each other’s response within a further period of two weeks.
According to the officials of the Irrigation Department, the Tribunal posted the matter to hear next on January 22 to 24 next.
SC hearing
In a separate development, the Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned the matter related A.P.’s petition to quash the orders of Telangana Government issued in 2021 on hydel generation at Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar and Pulichintala projects to December 12 to hear the interim prayers and asked the parties to file additional documents and pleadings in the meantime.
The officials stated that A.P. had pleaded for taking over the jurisdiction of hydel projects under the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) purview and sought directions to the Centre to impose penalities on Telangana for unauthorised power drawals. Telangana State Power Generation Corporation filed an application seeking to allow it to submit the rejoinder to the Centre and KRMB within two weeks.
Further, they stated that Telangana has furnished the list of cases related to KWDT-II – special leave petition related to KWDT-II 2013 Award, SLP related to KWDT-II order on Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS) and writ petition of Andhra Pradesh on the Section 3 reference complaint of Telangana to KWDT-II, which were posted for hearing on November 29. The court had asked Telangana to file the gist of pleadings to the cases to take a comprehensive view whether to tag AP’s writ petition with these case or not.
