Goa's special leave petition, which contested the Mahadayi Interstate Water Disputes Tribunal's ruling, was admitted by the Supreme Court on Monday. According to chief minister Pramod Sawant, the case has been scheduled for a hearing in November.

“A great start to the week for Goa and Goans. In a major boost to Goa’s legal battle for River Mhadei, the Supreme Court of India, today, admitted the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by [the] State of Goa challenging the award of the Mhadei tribunal. [The] Supreme Court now fixes the matter for hearing from 28th November 2023. The Supreme Court also asks the order of the Wildlife Warden to be produced before it. Also grants time to file additional evidence within 4 weeks,” Sawant said in a post on Twitter.

Goa petitioned the Supreme Court in February of this year, asking for a stay on the Central Water Commission's clearance for Karnataka to carry out the river diversion. This action was widely viewed in the context of the Bharatiya Janata Party's bid for re-election in May. The Congress won the state election.

In its request for a stay, Goa cited section 29 of the Wildlife Protection Act, which prohibits diverting waters from a wildlife sanctuary unless doing so is solely for the sake of the species there.

The Karnataka government was also given notice by the chief wildlife warden of Goa due to the possibility that the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary in Goa will be impacted by the work.

The ambitious Kalasa Banduri project aims to redirect water from the west-flowing Kalasa and Bandura streams, which are tributaries of the west-flowing River Mahadayi, to the east-flowing Malaprabha River. The Karnataka government began it in the middle of the 1980s with aspirations to build a 350-megawatt hydroelectric project.

Both the Goa and Karnataka governments have, for very different reasons, challenged the final award granted by the tribunal.

Goa petitioned the Supreme Court, contending that Karnataka shouldn't be permitted to divert any water because the Mahadayi River is a water-scarce river, while Karnataka claimed that the tribunal erred in approving only 13.42 TMC of water for the state.

The Goa government wrote to the Centre requesting that the Mahadayi Water Management Authority be established, a body that the tribunal claimed was required to carry out its report and final decision. The Goa government claimed that Karnataka had started illegally diverting water via a network of canals that were constructed despite an assurance given by Karnataka in 2017 that no further work would be carried out.

The first budget presented by newly-elected chief minister Siddaramaiah on July 7 promised to take forward the project no sooner they secure the required permissions including environmental and forest clearances.

Image source: ANI