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Resource Management and The Law
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LLM · Group 6 Environment and Legal Order
2016 Examination
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LLM Group 6 Environment and Legal Order Resource Management and The Law 2016 Question Paper with Solutions
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First published on munotes.in on 14 September 2026.
Published by munotes.in, Mumbai.
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 2016 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 2016 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2016 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 · 14 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.
SECTION I
QP Code 11790, the first paper on the scan
four of seven, all carry equal marks · 100 Marks
1.Salinity is a major problem in ground water management in India. Discuss.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: "discuss" asks you to test the statement, not just repeat it. Salinity in Indian ground water is not one problem but several, each with its own cause, geography, legal handle and prospect of reversal, so take them one at a time: inherent inland salinity, sea water ingress, salinity from irrigation, salinity from effluent and coastal land use, and salinity triggered by heavy pumping inland. Support each with an authority where one exists. Then weigh the statement honestly against the other great ground water problem, depletion, and conclude on whether salinity deserves to be called "major".
The statement, and the measure of the problem
Ground water management means keeping extraction within recharge and keeping the water fit for use. Salinity attacks the second aim. It is measured as total dissolved solids, and IS 10500:2012 treats 500 mg/l as acceptable for drinking and 2,000 mg/l as the outer limit where there is no alternative source.
The Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment 2025, released on 30 December 2025, classified 1.88 per cent of India's 6,762 assessment units as saline and 10.8 per cent as over-exploited, with a national stage of extraction of 60.63 per cent. Those two figures frame the discussion: saline units are fewer than over-exploited ones, but a saline unit has lost the use of its water, while an over-exploited unit has only drawn it down.
1. Inherent salinity in arid and semi-arid tracts
Cause. In parts of the arid north-west, including Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, ground water is brackish at some depths, partly because of salts in the sediments and high evaporation, and partly, as the third category below explains, because of irrigation.
Why it is a management problem. A water table may be high and yet useless. Resource estimates that count volume without quality mislead planners, and farmers who drill into saline layers damage their soil.
The response. Rather than prohibit use, the law steers saline water to users who can tolerate it. Paragraph 7.0 of the Central Ground Water Authority's Guidelines of 24 September 2020 says abstraction of saline ground water by industries and for dewatering "would be encouraged", exempts it from abstraction charges, and warns that effluent disposal must not pollute other aquifers. Paragraph 11.4 of the National Water Policy, 2012 encourages desalination where techno-economically feasible.
2. Sea water ingress in coastal aquifers
Cause. Fresh water floats on denser sea water. By the Ghyben-Herzberg relation about forty metres of fresh water lie below sea level for every metre that the water table stands above it, so modest pumping near the coast lets the salt interface rise sharply and move inland.
Where. The whole coastline is exposed wherever extraction is heavy. Gujarat appointed High Level Committees on salinity ingress in coastal Saurashtra and Kutch, where over-pumping for irrigation drew sea water into aquifers, and small islands are the extreme case.
The leading authority. In Attakoya Thangal v. Union of India, decided by the Kerala High Court in 1990, the facts were that the Lakshadweep administration proposed to augment island water supply by pumping from wells, although, the petitioners said, only 0.6 to 0.75 metres of ground water was available beneath the coral islands and pumping would let sea water penetrate the fresh water lens. Held. Administrative action may not make inroads into Article 21; the right to sweet water and free air are attributes of the right to life; over-exploitation must be contained and a scientific methodology and monitoring put in place. Why it bears. Coastal salinity is treated as a threat to a constitutional right, which obliges the State to plan extraction before the lens is lost.
The legal handle. The CRZ Notification, 2019 makes drawal of ground water a generally prohibited activity in the coastal zone, prohibits it within 200 metres of the High Tide Line in CRZ-III areas except for local communities, permits between 200 and 500 metres only manual withdrawal from ordinary wells where no other source exists, allows further restriction where sea water intrusion has occurred, and permits micro irrigation promoted by Government welfare schemes for horticulture and agriculture.
3. Salinity created by irrigation
Cause. Canal irrigation without drainage raises the water table; water evaporates near the surface and leaves its salts behind, and repeated irrigation with slightly saline ground water accumulates salt in the root zone.
Why it is a management problem. It is created by the very development that ground water and irrigation policy promote, and it degrades land and aquifer together.
The response. There is no dedicated statute. State ground water laws supply planning tools: the Maharashtra Groundwater (Development and Management) Act, 2009 requires ground water use plans and crop plans (sections 10 and 30) and allows guidelines to discourage water-intensive crops (section 9(6)). Paragraph 6.7 of the National Water Policy, 2012 asks for monitoring of use patterns that cause salinity or alkalinity. The remedy in the field is drainage, conjunctive use of canal and ground water, and a change of crops.
4. Salinity from effluent and from coastal land use
Industrial effluent. In Tirupur Dyeing Factory Owners Association v. Noyyal River Ayacutdars Protection Association, (2009) 9 SCC 737, the facts were that dyeing and bleaching units discharged effluent high in dissolved solids into the Noyyal, which was impounded at the Orathupalayam dam for irrigation, so that the water showed very high dissolved solids, excess chloride and a high percentage of sodium, and farmers of its command could not cultivate their land. Held. The units, whose members had caused unabated pollution, cannot escape the responsibility to meet the expenses of reversing the ecology: they must pay for removing the sludge from the river and cleaning the dam, and compensate the farmers who could not cultivate their land. Why it bears. Salinity caused by effluent can at least be charged to the polluter, and the Water Act, 1974, whose definition of "stream" in section 2(j) includes sub-terranean waters, forbids polluting matter entering any stream, well or land under section 24.
Coastal aquaculture. In S. Jagannath v. Union of India, (1997) 2 SCC 87, decided on 11 December 1996, intensive shrimp farming on the coasts of several States, including around Chilka and Pulicat lakes, had converted farmland and salt pans and salinised drinking water wells and agricultural land. Held. The Court applied the precautionary and polluter pays principles, prohibited shrimp ponds within the Coastal Regulation Zone except those using traditional and improved traditional technologies, prohibited all shrimp ponds within 1,000 metres of Chilka and Pulicat, forbade conversion of agricultural land, salt pans, mangroves, wetlands, forest land and village commons into shrimp ponds, directed that no aquaculture causing salinity of soil, drinking water or wells be permitted, and ordered an authority to assess compensation. Why it bears. It recognises salinity as a harm spreading from one land use to a whole village's water. The Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act, 2005 later required registration of farms, and its section 13(8), as substituted in 2023 with effect from 16 December 2005, bars coastal aquaculture in ecologically sensitive areas, allows only hatcheries, Nucleus Breeding Centres and Brood Stock Multiplication Centres in the No Development Zone, and allows only seaweed, pen, raft and cage culture in creeks, rivers and backwaters within the CRZ.
5. Salinity and drying triggered by heavy pumping inland
Heavy local pumping can draw poorer quality water from deeper or adjacent layers into wells even far from the sea. The Plachimada litigation shows how hard such harm is to prove, although what was alleged there was depletion and a deterioration in quality, not salinity.
In Perumatty Grama Panchayat v. State of Kerala, 2004 (1) KLT 731, the facts were that a bottling plant's extraction through bore wells and open wells was said by the panchayat to have dried up the wells and ponds nearby, causing a deterioration in the quality of the little water left and acute drinking water scarcity, and the panchayat refused to renew its licence. Held on 16 December 2003: ground water is held in public trust and a landowner has no absolute right to extract it in quantities that injure the neighbourhood.
On appeal, in Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (P) Ltd v. Perumatty Grama Panchayat, 2005 (2) KLT 554, the Division Bench held on 7 April 2005 that a person ordinarily has a right to draw ground water within reasonable limits, accepted an expert committee's finding that deficient rainfall was the most significant factor in the scarcity, inferred from wells drying even after the plant's pumping stopped that the allegations were not true to the factual situation, and allowed extraction up to five lakh litres a day, reduced in years of poor rain. The Supreme Court closed the appeals in July 2017 without deciding the question of law. Why it bears. Where depletion and poorer water quality are alleged, the law still struggles to prove cause and to decide who may pump how much.
The five problems compared
| Type | Cause | Example or authority | Legal handle | Reversible? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inherent inland | Geology and evaporation | Arid north-west | CGWA 2020 para 7.0: use by industry | Not a loss that can be reversed |
| Sea water ingress | Pumping lowers the fresh head | Attakoya Thangal; Saurashtra | CRZ 2019; notified areas | Very slowly, if at all |
| Irrigation | Poor drainage, evaporation | Canal commands | Crop plans, monitoring | Slowly, with drainage |
| Type | Cause | Example or authority | Legal handle | Reversible? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Effluent and aquaculture | Discharge, brackish ponds | Tirupur; S. Jagannath | Water Act; polluter pays; Coastal Aquaculture Act | Water yes, soil slowly |
| Pumping inland | Local over-extraction | Plachimada (depletion and poorer quality alleged) | Reasonable use; State Acts | Partly, with recharge |
What managing salinity actually requires
Measurement first. Quality must be monitored alongside levels. The 2020 Guidelines require certificate holders to test ground water every year in accredited laboratories, and those drawing more than 10 cubic metres a day to build observation wells, but most wells belong to exempt users whose water is never tested.
Planning by aquifer, not by well. Ingress is a property of an aquifer, and section 41 of the Maharashtra Act allows a basic watershed or aquifer to be identified and declared so that extraction can be planned for the unit, while section 4 allows water quality affected areas to be notified.
Adding water. Artificial recharge raises the fresh water head that holds salt water back. Section 9 of the Maharashtra Act requires recharge plans for notified areas and rainwater harvesting on urban premises of 100 square metres or more, and every CGWA certificate carries a recharge condition.
Protecting the drinking source. Sections 20 to 23 of the Maharashtra Act let a District Authority notify a public drinking water source, bar new wells within 500 metres, stop extraction from existing wells that affect it and prohibit its contamination.
Changing incentives. The CGWA Guidelines ask States to review free or subsidised electricity for farm pumps and to promote crop diversification, because the cheapest pumping drives the deepest drawdown.
Making polluters pay. Where salinity is caused by effluent or aquaculture, section 15 of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 allows relief to victims and restitution of the environment, applying the principle stated in Tirupur and S. Jagannath.
Is salinity really the "major" problem?
The case for the statement. Salinity is the problem that makes other failures permanent: a depleted aquifer can refill in good monsoons, a salinised one generally cannot. It is also hard to see, since it is detected only through water quality monitoring, which is why the 2020 Guidelines now require annual testing from certificate holders and piezometers from those drawing more than 10 cubic metres a day.
The case against it. By area, depletion is the larger problem: one unit in ten is over-exploited against fewer than one in fifty classified saline. Salinity is concentrated on coasts, islands and particular arid tracts, and in many of those places it is a consequence of depletion rather than a separate phenomenon.
The better view is that salinity and depletion are two faces of one failure to keep extraction within recharge, and that salinity is the more serious because it is largely irreversible. Paragraph 1.2(iv) of the National Water Policy, 2012 adds that sea level rise from climate change may increase salinity intrusion, so the coastal problem will grow even if pumping is controlled.
Conclusion. Salinity is a major problem in ground water management in India, but it is several problems with different causes and remedies: inherent salinity that must be managed by fit-for-purpose use, sea water ingress that only extraction control and recharge can prevent, irrigation salinity that needs drainage and crop change, and salinity from effluent and aquaculture that the law can charge to the polluter, as in Tirupur and S. Jagannath. It is less widespread than depletion but more permanent, and Attakoya Thangal shows why the law must treat it preventively: once the fresh water lens is gone, no court order restores it. Effective management therefore requires water quality data alongside water level data, strict control of coastal pumping, and treatment of salinity and over-extraction as a single problem.
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