New Delhi, Sep 10 (PTI): In a goodwill gesture, the Karnataka government today agreed before the Supreme Court to release 10,000 cusecs of water from Cauvery river to Tamil Nadu till September 20.

In wake of Karnataka's gesture, a bench of justices D K Jain and Madan Lokur refused to pass any order on Tamil Nadu's plea for direction to its neighbouring state to release 2 TMC of water.

The bench hoped the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) headed by the Prime Minister would be able to find an "amicable" solution to the river water dispute.

The court also disposed of Karnataka's plea, saying if it is kept pending, the authority might not find a solution to the dispute and will be ultimately left to it to decide it.

The bench, however, allowed the state governments to take appropriate steps if the CRA meeting does not take place.

The CRA, comprising chief ministers of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala, is scheduled to take place on September 19.

The bench, which had earlier pulled up the PMO officials for not fixing a date for the CRA meeting, also took a dig today at the Centre whose lawyers were absent during the hearing of the case.

In its affidavit, the Centre had said it had written to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry on the proposed meeting for their consent as the meeting was subject to the availability of the quorum.

In its application, Tamil Nadu had said during the current irrigation year 2012-2013, though the south west monsoon is not vigorous in the Cauvery catchment of Karnataka, the state of Karnataka had received 21.9 TMCft of inflow in its four major reservoirs up to July 20.

"But it has not shared the water with Tamil Nadu. Instead it started to build the storages in its 4 major reservoirs and letting water in the canals of Krishna Raja Sagar for irrigation with the result that the state of Tamil Nadu has been deprived of its due share of water as per the interim order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal," the application said.

It had complained that over the years, Karnataka did not agree to the distress sharing formula evolved by the Central Water Commission/Cauvery Monitoring Committee, with the result that it "resorts to impounding all the flows in its reservoirs depriving the state of Tamil Nadu in getting its legitimate flows, more so during the lean years, thus aggravating the distress situation."

Tamil Nadu had said "during the current irrigation season 2012-13 also, the southwest monsoon has not been active so far in the catchment area of Cauvery, with the result that there is a distress situation and since there is no agreed formula for sharing the flows in such distress years, the state is put to hardship."