Article 252 and Article 253: The Two Doors
Chapter Eight
Syllabus topic 1, "Pollution"
Pages 31 to 35 of 783
In one line
Parliament had no power of its own to legislate on water pollution, so it used two different constitutional doors, and which door an Act came through still decides where and when that Act applies.
In exam wording: the Water Act 1974 was enacted in exercise of the power conferred by Article 252(1) on the resolutions of twelve State Legislatures, and applies to any further State only from the date that State adopts it; the Air Act 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 were enacted under Article 253 to implement decisions taken at an international conference, and extend to the whole of India of their own force.
Why Parliament needed a door at all
The previous chapter placed the subject matter in the Seventh Schedule. Water is Entry 17 of the State List. Public health and sanitation is Entry 6 of the State List. Parliament has no general power over either.
So when the Government of India decided in the early 1970s that water pollution needed a national statute, the ordinary route was closed. Parliament could not simply pass an Act on a State List subject. It needed a provision that lets it do so anyway, and the Constitution offers three: Article 249, Article 250 and Article 252. Article 249 needs a Rajya Sabha resolution and lasts a year. Article 250 needs a Proclamation of Emergency. Neither is a basis for a permanent regulatory statute.
That left Article 252, and Article 252 has a price.
Door one: Article 252
What it says. Where the Legislatures of two or more States pass resolutions that a matter in the State List should be regulated by Parliament, Parliament may pass an Act for those States. Any other State may afterwards adopt that Act by a resolution of its own Legislature.
The price. The Act binds only the States that asked for it, plus the States that later adopt it. It is not national law. It is a law that spreads State by State, by consent, and the date on which it starts to bind a State is the date that State adopts it.
Clause (2), which is the part students forget. An Act passed under Article 252(1) may be amended or repealed by an Act of Parliament "passed or adopted in like manner", but a State Legislature cannot amend or repeal it as respects its own State. So the State gives up its own power over the subject, and the amending route runs through the same resolution machinery as the original.
How the Water Act used it. Read the preamble of the Water Act 1974 and it recites the position openly: Parliament has no power to make laws for the States on these matters except as provided in Articles 249 and 250, and resolutions had been passed by the Legislatures of the States concerned. Section 1(2) then names the twelve States it applies to in the first instance, and adds "and it shall apply to such other State which adopts this Act by resolution passed in that behalf under clause (1) of article 252 of the Constitution".
Article 252 and Article 253: The Two Doors
Door two: Article 253
What it says. Notwithstanding anything in the preceding provisions of the Chapter, Parliament has power to make any law for the whole or any part of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention with any other country or countries, or any decision made at any international conference, association or other body.
Why it is a much better door. It needs no State resolution, it produces national law at once, and it is not confined by the Seventh Schedule at all. The words "notwithstanding anything in the preceding provisions" put the distribution of legislative powers aside for this purpose.
Its condition. There must be a treaty, agreement, convention or a decision taken at an international conference to implement. That is the whole of the requirement, and it is easily satisfied.
How the Air Act used it. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment met at Stockholm in June 1972 and took decisions on the preservation of natural resources including air. The Air Act's own preamble recites that conference and says the Act is passed to implement those decisions. Section 1(2) then says simply that the Act extends to the whole of India. No list of States, no adoption, no resolutions.
And the Environment (Protection) Act did the same. Section 1(2): "It extends to the whole of India." Fourteen years after the Water Act, on the same conference.
Distinctions
| Article 252 | Article 253 | |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | resolutions of two or more State Legislatures | a treaty, agreement, convention or decision at an international conference |
| Where the Act applies | only in the consenting and adopting States | the whole or any part of India |
| When it binds a new State | on the date that State adopts it | at once, on commencement |
| Can the State Legislature amend it? | no, Article 252(2) | no, but the question does not arise |
| How is it amended? | by Parliament "in like manner" | by Parliament, ordinarily |
| On this syllabus | the Water Act 1974 | the Air Act 1981, the EPA 1986, the NGT Act 2010 |
Why this stopped being history in 2024
For fifty years the difference between the two doors was a question you answered in an examination and then forgot, because in practice the Water Act had been adopted everywhere that mattered and the amended text was the same everywhere.
Article 252 and Article 253: The Two Doors
That is no longer true, and the reason is the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act, 2024.
That Act decriminalised most of the Water Act's penal provisions. Sections 41, 41A, 42, 43, 44 and 45A now impose penalties instead of imprisonment, a new section 45B creates an adjudicating officer, 45C gives an appeal to the National Green Tribunal, and sections 45 and 47 were omitted altogether. Module IV works through all of it.
But the Water Act is an Article 252 Act, and Article 252(2) says an Act passed that way may be amended only by an Act "passed or adopted in like manner". So the amending Act had to go through the same door, and its own section 1 says so:
(2) It applies, in the first instance, to the whole of the States of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan and the Union territories; and it shall apply to such other State which adopts this Act by resolution passed in that behalf under clause (1) of article 252 of the Constitution read with clause (2) thereof.
Its recital names the two Legislatures that resolved: Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.
So on 15 February 2024 the decriminalised Water Act was the law in two States and the Union territories, and in no other part of India. Every other State remained under the old criminal provisions until it resolved. Maharashtra did so in March 2025, becoming the eighth State to adopt.
And no printed source tells a reader this. The consolidated text served by India Code carries the amended sections with footnotes that say only "w.e.f. 15-2-2024" and no territorial marking whatever. Read literally, that date is the date the amendment came into force in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and the Union territories, and it is not the date it came into force anywhere else. A commentary that prints "section 43 now carries a penalty" as a flat national statement is wrong about every State that has not resolved, and the list of those States is not published anywhere convenient.
A worked example
Two identical dyeing units. Ravi's is at Bhiwandi in Maharashtra. Ganesh's is at Hubballi in Karnataka. On 1 June 2024 each discharges effluent contravening section 24 of the Water Act.
Ravi, in Maharashtra, on 1 June 2024. Maharashtra had adopted the parent Water Act long before, under Article 252(1), and had repealed its own Prevention of Water Pollution Act of 1969 to make way for it. But it had not yet adopted the 2024 Amendment Act. So on that date section 43 in Maharashtra still read as it had since 1974, and the contravention was an offence carrying imprisonment.
Ganesh, in Karnataka, on the same day. Karnataka is one of the twelve States named in section 1(2) of the parent Act, so the Water Act has applied there since 1974 without any adopting resolution. But Karnataka was not among the States that resolved for the 2024 Amendment either. So section 43 in Karnataka also still read as it had since 1974.
Article 252 and Article 253: The Two Doors
Ravi again, on 1 June 2025. By then Maharashtra had resolved. Section 43 now imposes a penalty of not less than ten thousand rupees and not more than fifteen lakh, with a daily additional penalty, assessed by an adjudicating officer, appealable to the Tribunal on a ten per cent deposit. Same factory, same discharge, a different legal universe, and the only thing that changed was a resolution in a State Legislature.
A third unit, at Silvassa in Dadra and Nagar Haveli. A Union territory. The 2024 Act applied there from 15 February 2024 without anybody resolving anything, because section 1(2) says so.
What this does NOT mean
It does not mean the Air Act or the EPA vary from State to State. They do not. Both extend to the whole of India under Article 253, and the Jan Vishwas amendments to them took effect nationally on 1 April 2024. Only the Water Act has this problem.
It does not mean Parliament chose Article 252 by mistake in 1974. Article 253 was available then too, but the Stockholm Conference met in June 1972 and the resolutions for the Water Act had been set in motion before it. By 1981 the drafters had a conference to point at and took the easier door. The sequence is the explanation.
It does not mean a State can now legislate its own water pollution law. Article 252(2) forbids a State Legislature from amending or repealing the Act as respects its own State. Maharashtra repealed its own 1969 Act precisely because the field was gone.
Limits and criticism
Article 252 produces a patchwork, and the patchwork is invisible. There is no official published list of which States have adopted which amendment. A lawyer advising a client with plants in five States has to establish the position separately for each, and there is no register to consult.
Article 253 has been criticised as too wide. Because the article requires only "any decision made at any international conference", and the Union alone decides which conferences to attend and what to agree to, the Union can in principle reach any State List subject by first agreeing to something abroad. The courts have not cut it down, and the environmental statutes are the leading example of its use.
Quick revision
- Water is Entry 17, public health Entry 6, both State List. Parliament needed a door.
- Article 252: two or more States resolve, Parliament legislates for them, others adopt later. Applies State by State. Clause (2): amend only "in like manner", and the State cannot amend it itself.
- Article 253: a treaty or a decision at an international conference, and Parliament may legislate for the whole of India notwithstanding the Seventh Schedule.
- Water Act 1974 = Article 252, twelve States in section 1(2), Maharashtra by adoption.
- Air Act 1981, EPA 1986, NGT Act 2010 = Article 253, whole of India.
- The 2024 Water Amendment Act applies first to Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and the Union territories only. Maharashtra adopted in March 2025. India Code's "w.e.f. 15-2-2024" carries no territorial marking.
Article 252 and Article 253: The Two Doors
Test yourself
1. Why was the Water Act 1974 passed under Article 252 and the Air Act 1981 under Article 253? Water is a State List subject and Parliament had no power over it, so it needed the resolutions of at least two State Legislatures under Article 252. By 1981 the Stockholm Conference of 1972 had taken decisions on preserving natural resources, and Article 253 lets Parliament legislate for the whole of India to implement a decision at an international conference, without any State resolution. The Air Act's preamble recites that conference.
2. A State adopts the Water Act in 2001. From what date does it bind persons in that State? From the date of adoption, and not from 1974. Section 1(3) says the Act comes into force in an adopting State on the date of adoption, and the Act's references to its own commencement are read, in relation to that State, as references to that date.
3. Can Maharashtra amend the Water Act as it applies in Maharashtra? No. Article 252(2) provides that an Act passed under clause (1) may be amended or repealed by an Act of Parliament passed or adopted in like manner, but shall not, as respects any State to which it applies, be amended or repealed by an Act of that State's Legislature. That is why Maharashtra repealed its own Act of 1969 rather than keeping it alongside.
4. On 1 March 2024, was the offence under section 43 of the Water Act punishable with imprisonment in Tamil Nadu? Yes. The 2024 Amendment Act applied in the first instance only to Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and the Union territories, and Tamil Nadu had not adopted it. Until it does, the pre-amendment section 43 continues to apply there. The footnote date of 15 February 2024 in the consolidated text is the date for the two States and the Union territories and does not state the position anywhere else.
5. What is the standing criticism of Article 253? That the Union can reach a State List subject simply by agreeing to something at an international conference of its own choosing, so that a power framed as a means of honouring India's external obligations operates as a general override of the distribution of legislative powers. The environmental statutes are the leading illustration, and the courts have not read the article down.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.