Supreme Court Directs Karnataka to Comply with Cauvery Water Release Orders

The Supreme Court has directed Karnataka to comply with the Cauvery Water Management Authority's (CWMA) water-release orders, deferring further action for one week to monitor compliance. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta postponed the hearing to assess the state's compliance. The court noted that Tamil Nadu currently has sufficient water, meaning immediate coercive intervention is not required.

Tamil Nadu Alleges

Karnataka's reservoirs had 76% live storage as of Monday morning, but Tamil Nadu received only 14 TMC of its 64 TMC award, senior advocate CS Vaidyanathan, appearing for Tamil Nadu, said. Even factoring in a distress-year reduction to 55.29%, the state faces a backlog of about 20 TMC, he said.

Vaidyanathan said, "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."

Karnataka Defends Water Release

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for Karnataka, countered that water flow hit 12,607 cusecs on August 17. He explained that releases from the Krishna Raja Sagar reservoir require about 48 hours to reach the downstream interstate border.

Divan argued that the Supreme Court's role should be "very minimal" in this dispute. He noted that two expert bodies, the CWMA and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC), have already ruled on the matter.

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

He added, "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."

Background of Water Dispute

The CWMA recently backed a directive from the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee requiring Karnataka to release 12,000 cusecs daily for 15 days starting August 13.

Tamil Nadu filed its plea alleging Karnataka failed to comply with an earlier directive to release 3,500 cusecs daily from July 29. The state sought directions to ensure the stipulated flow reached the interstate border at Biligundlu and that Karnataka made good the accumulated shortfall.

Disputing the deficit calculations in a written response, Karnataka asserted that 86,797 cusecs reached Biligundlu between July 29 and August 10, well above the required 45,500 cusecs. The state further argued that the 2026-27 water year qualifies as a "distress year" and questioned the basis of Tamil Nadu's claim for an additional 26.954 TMC as its pro-rata entitlement.

"Let this matter be posted after a week so that further status regarding the release of water can be reported," the bench stated.