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Resource Management and The Law
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LLM · Group 6 Environment and Legal Order
2018 Examination
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LLM Group 6 Environment and Legal Order Resource Management and The Law 2018 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 2018 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 2018 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2018 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
Q.P. Code 50527, the first paper on the scan, headed FY LLM SEM I FIRST HALF 2018
four of seven, all carry equal marks · 100 Marks
1.Examine the efficacy of existing legislation on ground water management in India.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: India has no single ground water statute, so "existing legislation" must first be identified as a set of layers: the landowner's right under the Easements Act, the Central Ground Water Authority created under the Environment (Protection) Act, State ground water Acts, and the rules the courts have laid over all three. Examine each layer for what it can do and what it has actually done, give a scorecard, and then explain the common causes of inefficacy. The marks are in the verdict and its reasons, supported by Attakoya Thangal, the Plachimada litigation in both its stages, Intellectuals Forum and M.K. Balakrishnan.
Why "existing legislation" on ground water is a set of layers
Water is a State subject under Entry 17 of List II, and Parliament has not enacted a ground water law for the country. Regulation has grown by accretion: a colonial rule of property, an authority borrowed from environmental law, State statutes modelled on a Union draft first prepared in 1970, and judicial principles derived from Article 21 and the public trust doctrine. Efficacy has to be measured layer by layer against three tests: does it control extraction, does it protect quality, and does it reach the users who draw most of the water?
Layer one: the landowner's right under the Easements Act, 1882
Section 7(a) of the Easements Act, 1882 gives every owner of immovable property, subject to any law in force, the exclusive right to enjoy it and its products. Illustration (g) states the ground water rule: the right of every owner of land to collect and dispose within his own limits of all water under the land which does not pass in a defined channel. Water in a defined natural stream is treated differently by illustrations (h) and (j), which protect lower owners and allow use without material injury to others.
Efficacy for management: none by design. The rule was made when underground flow could not be traced, so it imposes no duty on a pumping owner towards his neighbours. It survives because it is expressly subject to any law in force, and every later layer operates by cutting it down.
Layer two: the Central Ground Water Authority under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
Its origin. On the Supreme Court's order of 10 December 1996 in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No. 4677 of 1985, the Central Government constituted the Central Ground Water Authority by notification S.O. 38(E) dated 14 January 1997 under section 3(3) of the Act, with power to issue directions under section 5. The Explanation to section 5 allows a direction for the closure or regulation of any industry or process and for the stoppage of electricity or water supply, which is the sanction that actually stops a tube well.
Its current rules. The Guidelines of 24 September 2020, notified as S.O. 3289(E), apply across India, prevail over inconsistent State guidelines, and require a no objection certificate for new and existing industries, infrastructure and mining projects abstracting ground water. They bar new major industries in over-exploited units, and impose digital flow meters with telemetry, rooftop harvesting and recharge, piezometers, annual water quality testing, water audits and abstraction charges. Extraction without a certificate attracts environmental compensation.
Its gaps. The same Guidelines exempt agricultural activities, individual domestic users, rural drinking water schemes, the armed forces and micro and small enterprises drawing under ten cubic metres a day, a list extended by an amendment of 29 March 2023. They explain why: 87.86 per cent of wells belong to farmers holding four hectares or less, and command and control regulation of so many structures would be "an arduous task". The Authority had also been regulating through certificates in only twenty-two States and two Union Territories, those not regulating ground water themselves.
A regulator that had to be pushed. The 2020 Guidelines themselves recite that the National Green Tribunal directed the Authority on 15 April 2015 to require permission for every tube well, directed on 13 July 2017 that every industry be made to pay for extraction, and on 28 August 2018 directed the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation to review the existing mechanism.
Efficacy: moderate for industry, marginal for the aggregate draft. The Authority governs the users whose draft is easiest to meter and leaves out the one that dominates.
Layer three: State ground water Acts
States have legislated on the Union's model Bill of 1970, revised several times up to 2005, and the Union stated in January 2026 that 21 States and Union Territories have adopted its Model Groundwater Bill. The Union circulated a new Model Groundwater (Sustainable Management) Bill, 2017, built on aquifer-level management, decentralised regulation and the public trust idea, but it is a template, not law.
The Maharashtra Groundwater (Development and Management) Act, 2009, numbered Maharashtra Act XXVI of 2013, shows the most developed form. It lets the State Authority notify over-exploited, critical and water quality affected areas (section 4); requires registration of all well owners in the State (section 7); prohibits drilling deep wells for agriculture or industry and bans pumping from existing deep wells of sixty metres or more in notified areas (section 8); mandates rainwater harvesting on urban premises of 100 square metres or more in notified areas (section 9); requires a crop plan and a watershed based ground water use plan (sections 10 and 30); protects notified public drinking water sources with a 500 metre bar on new wells (sections 20 and 21); requires permission and a recharge structure for a new well in a notified area (section 32); and allows declaration of a whole aquifer (section 41).
Efficacy: strong on paper, uneven in practice. The Maharashtra Act was passed in 2009 but carries a 2013 Act number, and its penalty for a first offence is a fine of up to ten thousand rupees (section 52). A statute with aquifer planning, crop plans and registration of every well needs a large technical administration, and the sanction for ignoring it is small.
Layer four: the rules the courts have laid over the statutes
Article 21 and the aquifer. In Attakoya Thangal v. Union of India, decided by the Kerala High Court in 1990, the facts were that the Lakshadweep administration planned to pump ground water from coral islands where, according to the petitioners, only 0.6 to 0.75 metres of ground water was available. Held. The right to sweet water is an attribute of the right to life, over-exploitation must be contained, and regulations and a monitoring agency should follow if necessary. Why it bears. It supplied a constitutional standard at a time when no statute did.
The public trust, and its limits. In Perumatty Grama Panchayat v. State of Kerala, 2004 (1) KLT 731, a single judge held on 16 December 2003 that ground water is a national wealth held in trust, and that a landowner has no absolute right to extract it in quantities injurious to the neighbourhood, when a panchayat refused to renew the licence of a soft drinks bottling plant at Plachimada whose extraction, the panchayat said, had dried up wells and ponds nearby and caused a deterioration in the quality of the water left.
That holding did not stand unqualified. In Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (P) Ltd v. Perumatty Grama Panchayat, 2005 (2) KLT 554, a Division Bench held on 7 April 2005 that ordinarily a person may draw water within reasonable limits without waiting for permission, that the trust doctrine did not by itself dislodge that right, and that restrictions are justified only to prevent drought or imbalance in the water table. On an expert committee's watershed study it allowed up to five lakh litres a day, reduced in years of deficient rain. The Supreme Court closed the appeals in July 2017 after the company said it would not reopen the plant, leaving the question of law undecided. Why it bears. The judicial layer shows how far courts will go without a statute: a reasonable-use limit, quantified case by case, not a permit system.
Recharge as a remedy. In Intellectuals Forum, Tirupathi v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2006) 3 SCC 549, where the beds of two ancient tanks had been alienated for housing, the Court applied the public trust doctrine and ordered rooftop rainwater harvesting for every house already built on the tank beds, recharge of storm water, no borewells in the area and piezometers to monitor the water table.
Adjudication as supervision. In M.K. Balakrishnan v. Union of India, (2009) 5 SCC 511, the facts were that a writ petition under Article 32 for the protection of wetlands, which the Court read to include ponds, tanks, rivers and lakes, had been expanded by the Court on its own motion to the water shortage in the country. The Court recorded that ponds and tanks had been filled up and built over, and that ground water was being rapidly depleted, with industries and hotels pumping it at an alarming rate.
Held. By its order of 26 March 2009 the Court issued notice to the Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, to state on affidavit what measures were being taken to solve the water shortage and to implement the recommendation in State of Orissa v. Government of India, JT 2009 (2) SC 233, that a body of eminent scientists should research on a war footing, among other things, inexpensive ways of converting saline water into fresh water. Why it bears. The Court supervised actively, but its instrument was to make the executive account for what it was doing: a court can press for a scientific and administrative response to depletion, but it cannot itself regulate extraction well by well.
The scorecard
| Layer | Controls extraction? | Protects quality? | Reaches agriculture? | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easements Act, s. 7 | No | Only ill. (f), percolating water | No | Obsolete as management |
| CGWA under the EPA, 2020 Guidelines | Yes, for industry, infrastructure, mining | Yes, monitoring conditions | Exempted | Moderate, partial |
| State Acts (e.g. Maharashtra 2009) | Yes, in notified areas | Yes, drinking water sources | Yes, deep wells and crop plans | Strong design, weak enforcement |
| Courts | Case by case | Through Article 21 | Indirectly | Principled, not operational |
What the national figures show
The Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment 2025, released on 30 December 2025, put the national stage of extraction at 60.63 per cent and found 10.8 per cent of 6,762 units over-exploited and 1.88 per cent saline. The share of over-exploited units had fallen from 17.2 per cent in 2017. That improvement is real, but a national average conceals the districts where extraction far exceeds recharge, and the assessment is a measurement, not evidence that any one statute caused the change.
Why the existing legislation is only partly effective
There is no national framework. Paragraph 2.2 of the National Water Policy, 2012 says ground water should be managed as a community resource held by the State under the public trust doctrine and that existing Acts may have to be modified accordingly. No law has done so.
The ownership rule has not been replaced. Every regulator must work against illustration (g), and the Division Bench in 2005 confirmed that a reasonable-use right survives.
The largest user is outside the net. Agriculture is exempt from the CGWA regime, and free or subsidised electricity, which the 2020 Guidelines ask States to review, pays farmers to pump.
Enforcement capacity and sanctions are weak, as the Maharashtra penalties show.
And institutions are fragmented between a Central Authority borrowing environmental powers, State authorities under separate Acts, and courts deciding one dispute at a time.
Conclusion. The existing legislation on ground water management is effective in parts and ineffective as a whole. The Central Ground Water Authority, operating since 1997 and under detailed Guidelines since 24 September 2020, regulates industry, infrastructure and mining with real tools, and the best State Acts, such as Maharashtra's, contain every instrument a hydrologist would ask for. But the Easements Act still gives the landowner the water beneath his land, agriculture is exempt from the central regime, State Acts are thinly enforced, and the courts, even when supervising as actively as in M.K. Balakrishnan, can call the executive to account but cannot administer aquifers. The Plachimada litigation, reversed in part in 2005 and left undecided in 2017, is the clearest sign that the law has not settled even who is entitled to ground water. Real efficacy requires a national framework treating ground water as a public trust resource, regulation of agricultural extraction alongside reform of power subsidies, and aquifer-level administration with the capacity to enforce it.
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