JUDGMENT :

G.B. PATTANAIK, J.

1. River Krishna originates in the State of Maharashtra and flows down through the State of Karnataka and State of Andhra Pradesh and meets the Bay of Bengal in Andhra Pradesh. It has got several tributaries and in the pre-independence era, there was not much dispute between the then States for sharing water of any inter-State river. Even then, when large-scale projects were taken up in one State, the other riparian States were apprehensive of getting their share of water from the river and it is in this context, for sharing the water of Tungabhadra, another river in the Krishna basin, there was an agreement in 1944, settling the dispute concerning the share of the water of the said River Tungabhadra. After the Constitution of India came into force, the Krishna basin fell within the territories of the States of Bombay, Mysore, Hyderabad and Madras. The States went on planning for erection of big projects for proper utilisation of the waters of the Krishna basin and in July 1951, a memorandum of agreement had been drawn up for apportionment of the available supply of the Krishna river system among the four riparian States namely, the States of Bombay, Hyd