Justice A.S. Bopanna and Justice M.M. Sundresh on Wednesday recused from hearing a plea relating to the dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over the sharing of Pennaiyar river water as two of them come from the two States involved in the dispute.

While Justice A.S. Bopanna hails from Karnataka, Justice M.M. Sundresh is from Tamil Nadu.

Soon after the matter was called, both the judges recused themselves from hearing it and said in a lighter vein that they may start fighting with each other if they were to deal with the dispute.

“We both cannot hear,” Justice Sundresh, who is from Tamil Nadu, said. “We will start fighting,” Justice Bopanna, who hails from Karnataka, said in a lighter vein.

Place the matter before the Chief Justice of Indian to constitute an appropriate bench, said the order after the recusal by two judges.

Earlier the matter was heard by a bench of Justice M.R. Shah (since retired) and Justice Manoj Misra.

While the matter will now come before another bench, the Ministry of Water Resources has informed the top court that it has submitted a proposal for setting up of Pennaiyar Water Dispute Tribunal  under the Inter-State Water Dispute Act, 1956, to the Cabinet Secretariat for consideration and approval of the Union Cabinet, which is yet to take a final decision in the matter.

A top court bench of Justice Shah (since retired) and Justice Misra on May 2, 2023, had given the Centre a month’s time to constitute the Penniyar Water Disputes Tribunal, including the issuance of the gazette notification.

Prior to this, on December 14, 2022, a bench of Justice Shah (since retired) and Justice C.T. Ravikumar had given Centre a three months’ time to complete the process of constituting the Tribunal to resolve the dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

The Centre had sought six months’ time to complete the process of constituting the tribunal involving five steps culminating in the consideration and approval of the proposal by the Union Cabinet and its gazette notification.

The Tamil Nadu government had filed an original suit on May 18, 2018, seeking the setting up of the Penniyar Water Disputes Tribunal to decide on the water sharing between two States.

The matter was first listed before a top court bench on January 7, 2019, in chamber before Justice Indu Malhotra (since retired) and since then it has been listed 14 times.