The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Centre was “in sheer contempt of this court” for disobeying its order to frame a Cauvery water sharing scheme by March 30 and ordered the water resources secretary to be present in court on May 14 with the scheme’s draft.
“By now, the authority should have framed the scheme. It can’t go on like this. What you have done is sheer contempt,” a three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud told Attorney General K K Venugopal when he sought more time, on behalf of the Centre, to finalise the draft scheme.
Appearing before a bench of CJI Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, Tamil Nadu’s counsel Shekhar Naphade said the Centre was taking the state and the court for a rideby playing politics. “Someone should go to jail for this deliberate disobedience,” Naphade said
In its February 16 verdict, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to frame the Cauvery management scheme, which also includes creating the Cauvery management board, within six weeks for smooth release of water from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. It had said the deadline could not be extended.
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