Cauvery row heats up as SC tells Karnataka to follow water release order

The Supreme Court on Monday directed Karnataka to comply with the Cauvery Water Management Authority’s (CWMA) directions on releasing water to Tamil Nadu, but stopped short of issuing any fresh coercive order immediately. The court said it would wait another week before assessing the situation based on updated water-release data.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was hearing Tamil Nadu’s plea alleging that Karnataka had failed to follow the CWMA’s directions on releasing Cauvery water.

Tamil Nadu flags shortfall

Senior advocate CS Vaidyanathan, appearing for Tamil Nadu, told the court that the state was not receiving the water directed by the CWMA and was consequently unable to supply it to farmers.

“In spite of the directions of CWMA, that is not being complied with and we are not seeing the water. We are not able to release any water to the agriculturists. It can’t be that they will keep all the waters,” Vaidyanathan submitted.

He said Karnataka’s reservoirs had 76% live storage as of Monday morning. According to Tamil Nadu’s calculation, 64 TMC should have reached the state under the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award, but only 14 TMC had been received.

Vaidyanathan further argued that even after accounting for a distress-year reduction, Tamil Nadu should have received 55.29% of the available water, leaving a shortfall of around 20 TMC.

Karnataka disputes non-compliance claim

Karnataka rejected the allegation that it had deliberately failed to comply with the water-sharing directions.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan said Karnataka had released more water than required under the earlier order and explained that water released from the Krishna Raja Sagar reservoir takes around 48 hours to reach the downstream measuring point.

“As of this morning the flow has exceeded the 12,000 cusecs which has been directed in the last order,” Divan said.

He told the bench that while there had been a shortage during the first four-five days, the flow at Biligundlu crossed the required level on Monday, reaching 12,607 cusecs against the CWMA’s August 17 requirement of 12,000 cusecs.

“We are not releasing any water, it is because God has been kind and flow has come. As of this morning it has exceeded 12,000 and those gates have been opened,” Divan maintained.

SC seeks fresh status report

The CWMA had endorsed a direction requiring Karnataka to release 12,000 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu for 15 days from August 13. Tamil Nadu had approached the Supreme Court alleging non-compliance with an earlier direction to release 3,500 cusecs daily from July 29.

Karnataka, however, said it had released 86,797 cusecs at Biligundlu between July 29 and August 10, against a requirement of 45,500 cusecs. It also described the 2026-27 water year as a “distress year” and disputed Tamil Nadu’s calculation of an additional 26.954 TMC entitlement.

The Supreme Court said Tamil Nadu currently had sufficient water and decided to wait for another week before reviewing the position.

“Let this matter be posted after a week so that further status regarding the release of water can be reported,” the bench said, while directing Karnataka to ensure compliance with the CWMA directions.