Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 26: Even as the Supreme Court has dismissed as “premature” a review petition filed by Tamil Nadu on the Karnataka’s Proposal on Mekedatu Balancing Reservoir, the chief minister C Joseph Vijay on Tuesday urged the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “reject” the proposal and stall Karnataka’s move for “bhoomi pujan” for the project.
A Bench of the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justices Vinod K. Chandran and Vipul M. Pancholi dismissed the review petition filed by Tamil Nadu to review the apex court’s November, 2025, decision that had termed its challenge to Karnataka’s proposed Mekedatu Balancing Reservoir cum Drinking Water Project to be premature.
Mr Vijay in a letter to Mr Modi urged him to reject Karnataka’s proposal for a dam at Mekedatu — an area close to the border between the two states. The letter comes in response to Karnataka’s move to begin Bhoomi Pujan for the dam. Vijay is expected to visit Delhi soon.
Amid the decades old controversy over Cauvery water, Karnataka plans to build a “balancing reservoir” at Mekedatu (meaning “Goat’s Crossing”) near Kanakapura in the Ramanagara district. But this would be in contravention to the decision of the Cauvery Water Tribunal, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court, Vijay has contended.
Under the 2018 Supreme Court judgment, states that are upstream of Cauvery cannot build any dam or reservoir without the consent of the states located downstream. In this case, Karnataka will need the consent of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry to build the Mekedatu dam.
On November 13, 2025 the apex had said the Detailed Project Report (DPR) on the reservoir, submitted by Karnataka, was only being considered by the experts in the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC). The Central Water Commission (CWC) had already made it clear that any acceptance of the DPR would be given only after approvals from CWMA and CWRC. The court had said in case of approval of DPR, the affected parties, including Tamil Nadu, would be free to take measures in accordance with the law. But for now, it was too early, the court had concluded. The apex court had said, Karnataka, anyway, would be bound to release Cauvery water allotted to lower riparian Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry, which was downstream.
The decision had been based on an application moved by Tamil Nadu seeking a direction to restrain the CWMA from deliberating the proposed reservoir project. The application had stated that the planning of the Mekedatu project with a capacity of 67.16 TMC ft. (thousand million cubic feet), and generation of a 400 MW project worth ₹9,000 crore was in “gross violation” of the decision of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal of February 5, 2007, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court itself on February 16, 2018.
“The Mekedatu dam is not on the list of projects permitted by the Tribunal,” which has been affirmed by the Supreme Court, Vijay wrote. “There is no scope for additional utilisation or for creating a huge storage reservoir, since the Cauvery basin is found to be a deficit basin and the available water at 50 per cent dependability has already been allocated to the party states… Hence the act of proposing to construct a new reservoir by Karnataka would amount to clear violation of the said judgment,” the letter read.
PM Modi should advise the Karnataka government not to take up any new project without getting the agreement of the downriver states and not violate the top court judgment, Vijay added. On Monday, Mr Vijay had asked the officials to pursue legal action regarding the Mekedatu dam.
The issue cropped up after the Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar last week said the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the Mekedatu project would be submitted to the Centre soon, and the ground-breaking ceremony would be held after obtaining its approval. “There is a clear order to release 177 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu. We will discuss how to resolve this in the coming days. The Supreme Court has ruled that Tamil Nadu has no right to object to the Mekedatu project and that the Central Water Commission must take a decision on it,” Shivakumar had said.
His comments have sparked an uproar in Tamil Nadu, with the opposition DMK declaring that Shivakumar had displayed an “arrogant attitude” by claiming Tamil Nadu had no right to raise objection over the project on river Cauvery. “The Chief Minister (C Joseph Vijay) should strongly condemn the Karnataka deputy Chief Minister for his remarks crushing (Tamil Nadu’s) rights in Cauvery river… he should thwart efforts to construct the dam in the initial phase itself,” the DMK said.