INFORMATION ON CAUVERY TRIBUNAL AGAIN 'INCOMPLETE'
Dharwad, Aug. 5 (SC) - The Water Resources Department has again come out with incomplete information to an important question asked under the Right To Information (
RTI) Act regarding the delegations sent to New Delhi on behalf of the State Government during the proceedings of Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT).
The Founder-President of Dharwad-based Puraskar Organisation, Krishna Joshi, had asked questions regarding the judgement of the Tribunal, fees paid by the Government to advocates, details of the delegations that had been to Delhi and many other important information, under the
RTI Act. As the information provided was once again not complete, everybody’s interest is now focussed on the final hearing of the Information Commission to be held on Sept. 27.
With regard to the Cauvery water dispute, eighteen advocates have argued on behalf of the Government. But the Water Resources Department has so far provided information on only nine advocates who visited Bangalore during 1991-92 till March 2007.There is no mention of details of the remaining nine advocates in the report.
Travelling and stay
Even in this report, there are a lot of discrepancies. While the report submitted on 19-6-2007 says that nine advocates from Delhi had visited Bangalore 619 times, the report submitted on July 25 says the advocates visited Bangalore 647 times.
The travel particulars of the advocates who came to Bangalore from Delhi to discuss about the case and the expenditure on their hotel stay are as follows :
Fali S.Nariman—17 times (Rs. 9.79 lakh), Anil Dewan— 59 times (Rs. 32.56 lakh), S.S.Javali — 160 times (Rs. 31.68 lakh), Mohan Kataraki- 176 times (Rs. 42.11 lakh), Shambhu Prasad Singh—159 times (Rs. 44.08 lakh), Sanjay Hegde— 9 times (Rs. 4.24 lakh), Syed Naqvi—35 times (Rs. 7.33 lakh), Ranveer Singh— 14 times (Rs. 8.44 lakh) and Brijesh Kalappa- 18 times (Rs.13.58 lakh).
The total expenditure incurred by the Government on these advocates' visit and hotel stay is Rs. 1,93,81,000. Of this, Rs. 112.75 lakh is towards their travelling expenses and remai-ning Rs. 81.06 lakh towards their hotel stay.
Advocate General absent
In 1991, when Cauvery Tribunal gave its interim award, C. Shivappa was the Advocate General of Karnataka . He held the office between 22-10-1990 and 5-8-1991 and appeared before the Tribunal only 10 times out of the total 13.
"Why was he absent for the remaining 3 hearings? Did the Government obtain a written reply from him in this regard? What was Shivappa’s reply?"
To all these questions, the Water Resources Department's reply is, "Information not available."
Not satisfied with the reply, Krishna Joshi wrote a letter to the Public Information Officer of the Department on Tuesday, asking, what reason did Shivappa give for his absence. In all the hearings when he was absent, what were the issues discussed? Joshi has sought the order sheet.
Government promulgated an Ordinance when the Interim award was announced on 25-6-1991. Since the President had sought the Supreme Court's opinion regarding the validity of the Ordinance, the Court gave its ruling on 22-11-1991.
Later, on 25-11-1991, State Government filed a review petition. There is a time limit for filing review petition.
Joshi has also sought explanation regarding the Department's reply which said there was no question of taking action against those responsible for the delay.
Why there was a delay of 5 months in filing review petition? Was the President’s action, seeking Supreme Court opinion, the cause for the Government’s delay? Did our State's advocates err?, he asked.
The Department said the summary of the final report of the Cauvery Tribunal was not published in Kannada. As people have already read the reports in the media, there was no proposal to publish the same in Kannada.
To this Joshi has questioned, “If the general public come to know of these matters through the media, will it rob the Government of its responsibility of providing information? Does it apply to all the orders of the Government?"
According to the regulations of the Inter-State River Disputes Act of 1956, the decision of the Tribunal was final in all such water disputes. In spite of this, was a written opinion obtained from the State Advocate General about filing an appeal in the Supreme Court? To this, the Department replied that as it is a “special matter”, the information cannot be disclosed. But the petitioner argued that as it is a matter related to the public cause, the Government has a responsibility to provide the information.
Water Resources Department has also provided incomplete information regarding questions asked about the delegations that were sent to file appeal regarding the water dispute.
A total of 6 delegations were sent on 23-4-1990, 11-7-1991, 19-7-1991, 5-12-1991, 31-12-1991 and 17-2-1992 to Delhi and the Department has given only the details of the members who were present in the first delegation and has said that it has no information about the members present in the other delegations and the expenses made on them. This has also angered the petitioner who has asked whose responsibility it is to provide answer to questions?
Krishna Joshi has further asked six questions on the replies provided by the Water Resources Department on July 25. He is hopeful of getting answers to his questions much before the final hearing which is fixed for Sept. 27.
Krishna Joshi asked the
PIO whether the Government prayed the Court to condone the delay of five months to file the revision petition.
Star Of Mysore Online