Constitutional mechanisms to resolve the inter-state water disputes have failed to address and solve the…

Question

Constitutional mechanisms to resolve the inter-state water disputes have failed to address and solve the problems. Is the failure due to structural or process inadequacy or both? Discuss.

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

The failure of India's water-dispute machinery is due to both structural and process inadequacy: ad hoc tribunals and weak enforcement invite delay and political defiance. The Cauvery tribunal took 17 years to give its 2007 award, which the Supreme Court still recast in 2018.

**Introduction**

Article 262 and the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 promised quick adjudication, yet the Cauvery tribunal took 17 years (1990 to 2007) and the Supreme Court still recast its award in 2018. The failure is both structural and procedural.

**Structural Inadequacies in the Dispute Framework**

1. **Ad hoc tribunals**: Each dispute gets a new tribunal with no permanent memory or neutral data arm, and the Sarkaria Commission (1988) urged time limits.
2. **Unused Union power**: Parliament's Entry 56 power lies idle, since no board was ever formed under the River Boards Act, 1956.
3. **Incomplete finality**: The Supreme Court hears appeals under Article 136, as when its 2018 Cauvery verdict cut Tamil Nadu's share to 404.25 tmcft.
4. **Weak enforcement**: Awards gained decree force only in 2002, and the Cauvery Water Management Authority came only in 2018.

**Process Inadequacies in Adjudication and Enforcement**

SKETCH: flow | Life of a Water Dispute
- State complaint
- Failed negotiation
- Tribunal: decades
- Award notified
- Appeal under 136
- Defiance on ground

1. **Chronic delay**: The Ravi-Beas tribunal of 1986 has still not given a final report.
2. **Political defiance**: Punjab's 2004 law annulling its water accords was struck down only in the 2016 Presidential Reference.
3. **Contested data**: Each state brings its own hydrological figures, and tribunals spend years reconciling them without a neutral basin database.
4. **Negotiation bypassed**: The Inter-State Council under Article 263 is rarely used, and no distress-sharing formula exists for deficit years.

**Conclusion**

The failure is due to both: an ad hoc structure breeds slow, politicised processes. A permanent tribunal with a negotiating Dispute Resolution Committee, as the 2019 amendment Bill proposes, can turn rivalry over rivers into basin-level cooperative federalism.

Constitutional mechanisms to resolve the inter-state water disputes have failed to address and solve the problems. Is the failure due to structural or process inadequacy or both? Discuss.

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