NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a fresh plea concerning allocation of Cauvery water, saying it was a dispute between the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and that they are already contesting the matter.

“If we start entertaining petitions of societies in a dispute between two states, which are already contesting the matter, then there will be no end to it,” a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta observed.

The bench refused to entertain the petition, which, among other prayers, sought the reallocation of 70 TMC of Cauvery River water from Tamil Nadu’s share to Karnataka.

The Karnataka government had told the apex court that it had released excess water to Tamil Nadu as of August 31 and the state was complying with the direction of the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) to ensure a flow of 9,000 cusecs.

On August 25, the CWMA upheld the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee’s (CWRC) recommendation directing Karnataka to ensure a flow of 9,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu for 15 days.

The Tamil Nadu government told the top court that it had informed the authority about the water backlog, but no direction was issued in this regard.

The apex court was then hearing the Tamil Nadu government’s plea seeking directions to the Karnataka government for immediate release of water to it.

On August 17, the apex court had asked Karnataka to ensure compliance of the

CWMA direction on the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu government had earlier said the State was not getting its due share of Cauvery water in a rain-deficient year. The Joseph Vijay-led government, on August 3, approached the apex court seeking directions to the Karnataka government to immediately release water. The state government, in its plea, claimed that the quantum allocated to it by the CWRC, as well as that released by its neighbour, Karnataka, was very little.