The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) was a quasi-judicial Tribunal constituted by the Central Government in 1990 under Section 4 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956. It was created to adjudicate the long-standing conflict over the sharing of the Cauvery river waters among the basin states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the Union Territory of Puducherry. The dispute originated from colonial-era agreements of 1892 and 1924 between the Princely State of Mysore and the Madras Presidency.
The CWDT mechanism involved issuing an Interim Award in June 1991 and a Final Award on February 5, 2007. The Final Award allocated water in a normal year, granting 419 tmcft to Tamil Nadu and 270 tmcft to Karnataka.
The Tribunal's role was superseded by the Supreme Court judgment on February 16, 2018, which modified the allocation, increasing Karnataka's share to 284.75 tmcft and reducing Tamil Nadu's share to 404.25 tmcft. Following this judgment, the CWDT was formally dissolved on July 16, 2018, via Notification No. S.O. 3465(E). The implementation and regulatory mechanism was replaced by the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA), established in June 2018 under Section 6A of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court's modified final award.