LLM Group 6 Environment and Legal Order Resource Management and The Law 2024 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: the question has two limbs and the examiner marks them separately. The first is how the framework gives content to "equitable" sharing, which means the doctrine of equitable apportionment and the factors that decide a share, and then the statutory machinery through which a share is fixed and enforced. The second is reform, and a reform earns marks only when it is tied to a named fault. Work the Cauvery decree of 2018 in full, use the Punjab and Mullaperiyar cases to show what happens when a State legislates against a settlement, and set the reforms out against the faults in a table.

What "equitable" means: the doctrine of equitable apportionment

Three theories compete in water law. The Harmon doctrine lets an upstream State do as it pleases with water in its territory. The natural flow or prescriptive theory lets a downstream State insist on the flow it has always received. Equitable apportionment rejects both and divides the beneficial use of the river among the basin States by weighing every relevant factor. Indian law has chosen the third, and the Supreme Court said in 2018 that with its evolution "the concept of prescriptive right or right to the natural flow of any inter-state river has ceased to exist".

The factors are those of Article V of the Helsinki Rules, 1966, which Indian tribunals have applied and which the Supreme Court approved. A reasonable and equitable share is determined in the light of all relevant factors, none of which has a fixed weight.

How the machinery turns the doctrine into an enforceable share

The request. Under section 3 a State Government may request the Central Government to refer a water dispute to a Tribunal where the interests of the State or of its inhabitants are prejudiced by another State's action, inaction or failure to implement an agreement. Section 2(c) defines a water dispute to include the interpretation and implementation of an agreement, which is why the colonial agreements of 1892 and 1924 on the Cauvery were justiciable.

The Tribunal. Section 4(1), as amended in 2002, obliges the Central Government to constitute a Tribunal within one year of the State's request, where it is of opinion that negotiation cannot settle the dispute. The Chairman and two members are nominated by the Chief Justice of India from sitting judges of the Supreme Court or a High Court, with assessors to advise them.

The adjudication. Section 5(2) requires the report within three years, extendable by two, and section 5(3) allows a further reference for explanation within three months of the decision. In State of Tamil Nadu v. State of Karnataka, 1991 Supp (1) SCC 240, the Cauvery Tribunal had refused to entertain applications for interim relief as outside the reference, and the Supreme Court held that they fell within it and had to be decided on their merits. The resulting interim order of 25 June 1991 fixed 205 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) a year at Mettur, and on a Presidential reference the Court later advised that it was a decision under section 5(2).

Finality and implementation. Under section 6 the decision, once published in the Official Gazette, is final and binding and has the same force as an order or decree of the Supreme Court. Section 6A allows the Central Government to frame a scheme creating an implementing authority, which has effect notwithstanding any other law. Section 11 bars the jurisdiction of every court over a water dispute that may be referred to a Tribunal.

The decree of 2018: equitable apportionment worked out

The leading modern authority is State of Karnataka v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2018) 4 SCC 1, decided on 16 February 2018 by Dipak Misra CJ, Amitava Roy and A.M. Khanwilkar JJ.

Why it bears. Each limb of the doctrine is visible in one judgment: the rejection of prescriptive rights, the Helsinki factors, the priority of drinking water, and the treatment of ground water and surface water as one resource. The scheme of June 2018 created the Cauvery Water Management Authority and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee, so the share now has a standing body to enforce it.

When a State legislates against a settlement

Equitable sharing collapses if a State can undo it by statute, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly said it cannot.

The same principle governed In re Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, Special Reference No. 1 of 2004, opinion of 10 November 2016. Facts. Punjab enacted a law purporting to terminate the Ravi and Beas waters agreement of 31 December 1981 and to discharge itself from the Supreme Court's decree of 15 January 2002, and the President referred its validity under Article 143. Held. A five-judge Bench answered every question in the negative: one party State cannot unilaterally terminate a water agreement or nullify a decree of the Court, and a law that does so usurps judicial power. Why it bears. The opinion came twelve years after the reference of 22 July 2004, which is itself an argument for reform.

Where the framework still fails

Delay is structural. Tamil Nadu's request of 1970 produced a Tribunal in 1990, an award in 2007, a notification in 2013, a decree in 2018 and an authority that year. The Ravi and Beas Tribunal of 1986 has never given a final decision, and the Mahanadi Tribunal of 2018 had its term extended again in April 2026, to January 2027.

The Act has no consequence for breach of its own timetable. The one-year limit in section 4 bites only once the Centre is of opinion that negotiation has failed, and no time is fixed for forming that opinion; the three-plus-two years in section 5 are extended routinely.

Two cautions belong in the answer. The 2019 Bill passed the Lok Sabha but lapsed on the dissolution of the 17th Lok Sabha in June 2024, so none of its reforms is law. And no institutional design removes the political incentive of a State Government that pays electorally for accepting a smaller share, which is why settlement machinery matters as much as adjudication.