Latest update, 12.15 pm: Tamil Nadu has called the Supreme Court verdict as being "unfair" for the people of the state, and said it will need to study the judgment in greater detail. However, the DMK has already accused the state government of not "properly handling the case" and called for the resignation of Chief Minister E Palaniswamy.
The Supreme Court has ordered Karnataka to release 177 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu, after saying one state cannot claim ownership over a river. Karnataka will also get 14.75 additional TMC of water, while 4.7 out of this will be for Bengaluru city alone, the court has held.
Meanwhile, security has been beefed up across Tamil Nadu and Karnataka ahead of the Supreme Court's verdict on the Cauvery water dispute between the two states. In Bengaluru, 15,000 policemen have been deployed to maintain peace, while state transport buses aren't plying between the two states.
The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Friday its verdict on the decades-old Cauvery water dispute between riparian south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud had on 20 September last year reserved the verdict on the appeals filed by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala against the 2007 award of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT) on sharing of water.
File image of Supreme Court of India. AP
The decades-old Cauvery water dispute was decided unanimously by CWDT in 2007, after determining the total availability of water in the Cauvery basin at 740 thousand million cubic feet at the Lower Coleroon Anicut site, including 14 thousand million cubic feet for environmental protection.
The final award makes a yearly allocation of 419 thousand million cubic feet to Tamil Nadu in the entire Cauvery basin, 270 thousand million cubic feet to Karnataka, 30 thousand million cubic feet to Kerala and 7 thousand million cubic feet to Puducherry.
The top court had earlier clarified that any other forum could touch the matter relating to the Cauvery river basin only after it gives its verdict.
The apex court had in January said the verdict would be pronounced within a month, adding that the matter has already created enough confusion for decades.
The top court during the course of pendency of appeals of the neighbouring states against the arbitral award of 2007, had passed several orders directing Karnataka to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
On 30 September, 2016, the Supreme Court had pulled up Karnataka for its repeated "defiance" in flouting its orders for releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu and said no one would know when the "wrath of the law" would fall on it.
Later, Karnataka had moved a review petition in the apex court against its three orders on on the issue and direction to the Centre to create the Cauvery Water Management Board (CWMB), saying "grave miscarriage of justice" had been caused to it following the three apex court orders of 20, 27 and 30 September, by which it was directed to release water.
Tamil Nadu had earliar also alleged that Kerala was drawing water in excess of what has been allocated to it by the tribunal.
The apex court had on 9 December, 2016 upheld the maintainability of appeals filed by the riparian states saying it has the "jurisdiction to decide the parameters, scope, authority and jurisdiction of the tribunal".
The court had rejected the Centre's objection that the CWDT award amounted to a final decree and it had no jurisdiction to hear the appeals against the award.
