It is an extraordinary situation when a chief minister openly states that he is unable to implement the orders of the highest court in the land. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has pleaded helplessness in releasing 6,000 cusecs of the Cauvery water for the parched farmlands of Tamil Nadu, thus virtually defying the Supreme Court.
Arming himself with an all-party resolution, passed at a hurriedly-convened session of the State Assembly, the Karnataka Chief Minister argued that the State does not have enough drinking water for its urban centers, including the IT capital Bengaluru, for it to be in a position to give water to the neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
The Tamil Nadu Government had sought the intervention of the top court. Despite repeated orders and amendments in recent days, the dispute between the two States remains unresolved, even as an earlier order directing Karnataka to release water led to mayhem on the streets of Bengaluru and other urban centers in the State. On Tuesday, the SC reprimanded the Karnataka Government for not releasing the water as ordered. The court also asked the Centre to intervene.
The Centre has now convened a meeting for Thursday. Siddaramaiah and a representative of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa — she herself is unwell — are slated to present their respective cases. But it is hardly likely that the Centre will be able to bring about a compromise on such an emotive issue. Its task is unenviable for it would itself feel circumscribed by political considerations.
Under the circumstances, the SC remains the ideal forum to apportion the waters between the two States. Electoral considerations cannot be far from the minds of anyone at the Center when it tries and helps find a mutually agreed solution to the water dispute. In all probability the Centre- convened meeting might end up witnessing more recriminations between the representatives of the two States without it throwing up any conclusive agreement.
Though the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu water war has been a recurring annual feature for decades, it is the first time that Karnataka has frontally refused to implement the apex court order. This is disturbing. Thus, the constitutional order is threatened and federalism comes under intense pressure when an elected State government virtually thumbs its nose at the highest court in the land.
Ultimately the country is paying a high price for the folly of the early governments which preferred to shove ticklish problems under the carpet rather than grapple with them frontally, especially when they had the moral and political authority to enforce their writ in all such matters.
