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Resource Management and The Law
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LLM · Group 6 Environment and Legal Order
2015 Examination
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LLM Group 6 Environment and Legal Order Resource Management and The Law 2015 Question Paper with Solutions
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First published on munotes.in on 14 September 2026.
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Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
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The University does not publish an official answer key for this paper. The answers in this volume are model answers, written to show how a full-mark answer is built. They are a study aid, not an authority on what an examiner marked.
The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the 2015 examination.
The law in these answers is stated as at September 2026, and five developments date most textbooks on this subject. The SHANTI Act, 2025 received assent on 20 December 2025 and repeals the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 when it commences, which had not happened by mid-September 2026. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 replaced the Mines Act, 1952 on 21 November 2025. The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 has been the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam since its 2023 amendment. On 29 July 2026 the Supreme Court held in Vanashakti v. Union of India that prior environmental clearance is mandatory and that only a narrow, time-bound scheme made by notification can cure a project begun without it. And the Plachimada ruling that ground water is held in public trust was reversed in part by a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on 7 April 2005.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2015 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2015 examination, reproduced as the University of Mumbai set them, in the order it set them. Nothing has been reworded, added or left out. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 7 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
1.Discuss Interstate water management and disputes with reference to Kauveri water dispute case.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the question asks for two things, the management of inter-State waters and the resolution of disputes about them, and it asks for both "with reference to" the Cauvery. Use the Cauvery as the spine: its agreements, the twenty years before a Tribunal, the interim order and the Karnataka Ordinance, the award, the decree of 2018 and the authority that now runs the river. At each step name the provision or judgment that governed it. Then draw out what the Cauvery teaches about managing a shared river, which is where the word "management" earns its marks.
Inter-State water management and disputes: the legal frame
The Constitution separates two things that are easily confused. Management of an inter-State river, its regulation and development, belongs to the States under Entry 17 of List II except to the extent Parliament takes it under Union control by a declaration under Entry 56 of List I. Disputes about the use, distribution or control of its waters are dealt with under Article 262, which lets Parliament provide for their adjudication and exclude the courts.
Parliament enacted a statute for each in 1956. The River Boards Act made the declaration under Entry 56 and provided for advisory Boards, none of which has ever been set up. The Inter-State River Water Disputes Act provides for Water Disputes Tribunals. In its opinion of 22 November 1991 on the Cauvery reference, the Supreme Court held that the Disputes Act is made under Article 262 and not under Entry 56, which is why a State cannot rely on its own water entry to escape a Tribunal.
The Cauvery basin and the agreements of 1892 and 1924
The Cauvery rises in the Kodagu hills of Karnataka and flows through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to the Bay of Bengal, with tributaries rising in Kerala and a delta portion in the Karaikal region of Puducherry. The river is fed largely by the south-west monsoon in its upper basin, while the Thanjavur delta downstream is among the oldest irrigated tracts in the country. The upper State wanted to develop later what the lower State had developed first, and in a bad monsoon there is not enough for both.
Two agreements between the Madras Presidency and the Princely State of Mysore governed the river: that of 1892, which required Mysore to obtain the consent of Madras for new irrigation works, and that of 1924, which permitted stated storages in Mysore and extensions in Madras. Karnataka argued that they were unequal colonial instruments and that the 1924 agreement lapsed after fifty years; Tamil Nadu argued that they bound the successor States and protected its established use. Because section 2(c) of the 1956 Act includes the interpretation and implementation of an agreement within the definition of a water dispute, the agreements could be adjudicated.
From request to Tribunal: 1970 to 1990
Tamil Nadu asked the Union for a reference in 1970. Negotiation continued for twenty years without result, and it took a court to end it.
In Tamil Nadu Cauvery Neerppasana Vilaiporulgal Vivasayigal Nala Urimai Padhugappu Sangam v. Union of India, AIR 1990 SC 1316; (1990) 3 SCC 440, decided on 4 May 1990 by Ranganath Misra, P.B. Sawant and K. Ramaswamy JJ, the facts were these. A registered society of Tamil Nadu farmers claiming riparian rights in the Cauvery petitioned under Article 32 in 1983 for a direction to the Union to refer the dispute; a suit by Tamil Nadu under Article 131 had earlier been withdrawn for negotiations; twenty-six meetings of the Chief Ministers had failed; and on 26 April 1990 the Union told the Court it did not wish to negotiate further. Held. Section 4 of the Act is mandatory once the Central Government must be taken to be of opinion that negotiation cannot settle the dispute, the Bill's "may" having been changed to "shall", and the Union was directed to notify a Tribunal within one month. Why it bears. The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal was constituted on 2 June 1990, and the case remains the authority that the Union's gatekeeping discretion is not unlimited.
The interim order and the Karnataka Ordinance: 1991
Tamil Nadu asked the new Tribunal for interim relief, and the Tribunal refused to entertain the applications because, in its view, interim relief had not been referred to it. In State of Tamil Nadu v. State of Karnataka, 1991 Supp (1) SCC 240, decided on 26 April 1991, the Supreme Court held that the reliefs sought fell within the dispute the Central Government had referred and directed the Tribunal to decide them on their merits, leaving open the larger question whether a Tribunal has any general power to grant interim relief. On 25 June 1991 the Tribunal ordered Karnataka to release water so that 205 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) a year reached Mettur.
Karnataka's response was legislative. In In re Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, AIR 1992 SC 522, the facts were that on 25 July 1991 the Governor of Karnataka promulgated the Karnataka Cauvery Basin Irrigation Protection Ordinance, which directed the State to abstract as much Cauvery water as it deemed requisite notwithstanding any order of any court or Tribunal, and on 27 July 1991 the President referred three questions under Article 143. Held on 22 November 1991 by a Bench of five judges: the Ordinance was beyond the legislative competence of the State and ultra vires, because a State's water entry cannot be used to affect the waters of an inter-State river beyond its territory or to defy a Tribunal constituted under a law made under Article 262; the interim order was a report and decision under section 5(2) which had to be published under section 6; and a Tribunal may grant interim relief on a reference by the Central Government. Why it bears. It established that a party State cannot legislate its way out of adjudication.
The award of 2007 and the six years before it bound anyone
The Tribunal's final award came on 5 February 2007. It treated 740 TMC as the available water and allocated Karnataka 270, Tamil Nadu 419, Kerala 30 and Puducherry 7, reserving 10 TMC for environmental protection and 4 TMC for inevitable escapage into the sea, with a monthly schedule of releases at the inter-State border.
The award was not published until 19 February 2013. Under section 6(1) publication is what makes a decision final and binding, and under section 6(2), inserted in 2002, a published decision has the force of an order or decree of the Supreme Court. For six years an award existed and bound nobody, which shows how much of inter-State water management depends on executive acts for which the Act fixes no time.
The decree of 2018
In State of Karnataka v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2018) 4 SCC 1, a Bench of Dipak Misra CJ, Amitava Roy and A.M. Khanwilkar JJ decided the appeals of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu on 16 February 2018.
Facts. Karnataka challenged the agreements and its share, Tamil Nadu sought more water and implementation, and the Union contended that section 6A left it free to decide whether to frame an implementation scheme. A preliminary question was whether section 11 barred an appeal at all.
Held. The appeals were maintainable under Article 136 notwithstanding section 11, as the Court had already ruled in the same proceedings in State of Karnataka v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2017) 3 SCC 362. The agreements of 1892 and 1924 were not political instruments extinguished by the lapse of paramountcy and survived reorganisation, but the 1924 agreement was for fifty years and expired in 1974. The Tribunal was right to apply the Helsinki Rules and equitable apportionment; prescriptive rights to the natural flow of an inter-State river have ceased to exist; and the waters of such a river are a national asset that no State owns. Drinking water is "a hierarchically fundamental principle of equitable distribution". About 20 TMC of ground water was available in Tamil Nadu, of which 10 TMC was counted, and Bengaluru needed 4.75 TMC more for drinking and domestic use. Karnataka's share rose by 14.75 TMC to 284.75 and Tamil Nadu's fell to 404.25, Karnataka to deliver 177.25 TMC at Billigundulu; the monthly releases were endorsed for fifteen years; and the Union was directed to frame a scheme within six weeks.
Why it bears. The decree converts a dispute into a management regime: a fixed allocation, a priority rule, a treatment of ground water and surface water as one resource, and an obligation to build an authority.
Management after adjudication: the Cauvery Water Management Authority
The scheme framed under section 6A in June 2018 created the Cauvery Water Management Authority, with members representing the Union and the four party States, to secure the implementation of the award as modified, including the regulation of releases from reservoirs, and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee, a technical body that assesses rainfall, inflow and storage and advises on actual releases. By section 6A(6) a scheme has effect notwithstanding any other law, so the Authority's directions prevail over State reservoir rules.
The remaining problem is distress. An award allocates water for a normal year and a monthly schedule for it; a deficient monsoon requires the shortfall to be shared, and that is the recurring subject of friction the Authority now manages rather than a question the Supreme Court is asked to decide afresh.
What the Cauvery teaches about inter-State water management
| Lesson | Where the Cauvery shows it |
|---|---|
| The forum must be available on time | Twenty years from request (1970) to Tribunal (1990) |
| A Tribunal needs interim powers | 1991: interim relief held to be within the reference, and within a Tribunal's competence when the Centre refers it |
| States will legislate against an adverse order | Karnataka Ordinance of 1991, held ultra vires |
| Publication is a hidden gate | Award of 2007 notified in 2013 |
| Ground water and surface water are one resource | 10 TMC of Tamil Nadu ground water counted in 2018 |
| Drinking water comes first | 4.75 TMC added for Bengaluru |
| Adjudication must end in an authority | CWMA and CWRC, June 2018 |
A second lesson concerns planning at the scale of the basin and beyond it. The National Water Policy, 2012 treats the river basin as the unit of planning (paragraph 12.4) and calls for legislation enabling basin authorities with power to plan and regulate (paragraph 2.3). The most ambitious form of inter-State management, interlinking rivers across basins, reached the Supreme Court in In re Networking of Rivers, (2012) 4 SCC 51. Facts. Petitioners sought directions to the Union and the States to implement the interlinking project on which a task force had reported. Held. The Court could not compel a policy choice of that kind, but because the Government had accepted the project in principle it directed the Union to constitute a Special Committee for the Inter-Linking of Rivers to plan and implement it and report to the Cabinet. Why it bears. Management of shared waters is a matter of policy for the Executive; disputes about rights are matters for Tribunals and courts.
Conclusion. The Cauvery shows inter-State water law working, but at the speed of its slowest executive act. Every mechanism was eventually made to operate: the Supreme Court compelled a Tribunal in 1990, confirmed its interim power in 1991, struck down Karnataka's Ordinance the same year, and in 2018 heard appeals, fixed the shares at Karnataka 284.75, Tamil Nadu 404.25, Kerala 30 and Puducherry 7 TMC, and ordered the implementation scheme that created the Cauvery Water Management Authority. What took forty-eight years from Tamil Nadu's request in 1970 should, on a sound design, take a fraction of that time, and the Cauvery is therefore both the proof that the machinery can resolve the hardest dispute and the strongest argument for a standing Tribunal and basin authorities that manage rivers before they are fought over.
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