Tamil Nadu may move contempt plea if no action on CMB

Highly placed government sources privy to the development revealed to DT Next that legal experts have advised the government to file a contempt petition should the Centre not constitute the CMB before the March 29 deadline. 

The suggestion came from by senior advocate Shekhar Naphade to a delegation of TN bureaucrats comprising Tamil Nadu chief minister’s secretary M Saikumar, PWD secretary SK Prabhakaran and Cauvery technical cell chairman R Subramanian camping in the national capital to handle the Cauvery imbroglio. 

The likelihood of the government accepting the suggestion of legal experts could not be ruled out given the admission of the government source that, “The Centre has not moved anything so far.” 

However, sources said that the state may not be averse to settling for less than a CMB without compromising on the implementation of the final order in the case. When attention was drawn to union water resources minister UP Singh’s suggestion on Tuesday that “scheme and board were the same”, the source said, “Name does not matter. Whether it is board or authority, it should have powers to implement the order in its entirety. It should be an implementing agency of final orders,” before admitting that the bone of contention between the two states was whether constitution of CMB was an order or recommendation. 

Tamil Nadu has explored its options a few days after the chief secretary of Karnataka wrote to the Centre on March 24, suggesting the formation of a Cauvery Decision Implementation Committee instead of the CMB.