Hyderabad: The Karnataka government on Wednesday argued before the Justice Brijesh Kumar Tribunal that the latter should limit its adjudication of water disputes only to Telangana and AP states and Karnataka and Maharashtra need not be involved since the Tribunal had passed its order back in 2013.

The Tribunal has commenced final hearings from all four states on whether they should reopen the issue of Krishna water allocations in view of bifurcation of AP or should they confine the allotment to AP and Telangana.

Senior counsel Anil Diwan, representing Karnataka, submitted that the AP Reorganisation Act was limited only to Telangana and AP. Karnataka contended that in 2010, the Tribunal had pronounced judgment and after adjudication of all the objections raised by the four states, in 2013 it had announced the “final award” on water sharing among the riparian states.

At this stage the undivided AP government had approached the SC and obtained a stay order on publication of the order in the gazette by the Centre. The Karnataka counsel said had there be no stay order, the final award passed by the Tribunal would have been notified in the gazette to make it operational.