Despite constitutional mandate, the Inter-State Council has not come of age. Discuss. (2019, 10 Marks)
Article 263 lets the President, by order alone, create a council to (a) inquire into and advise upon disputes between states, (b) investigate subjects of common interest and (c) recommend better coordination of policy. Dispute resolution stands first. Yet the Inter-State Council (ISC) was constituted only on 28 May 1990, on the Sarkaria Commission‘s advice, and thirty-six years on it remains a forum convened at the Union’s pleasure.
Evidence that it has not matured
- Irregular meetings. The 1990 Order envisages at least three meetings a year. There have been eleven in all, with a decade’s gap between the tenth (December 2006) and the eleventh (16 July 2016), and none since.
- A truncated mandate. Following Sarkaria, the Order conferred only clauses (b) and (c). The Council has never taken up an inter-state dispute; water, boundary and fiscal quarrels go to tribunals and the Supreme Court.
- Weak infrastructure. Its secretariat, set up in 1991, was merged with the Zonal Council Secretariat in 2018. What survives is a Home Ministry cell rather than an independent body with research capacity.
- Unfinished follow-up. The Punchhi Commission (2010) wanted Concurrent List bills and even gubernatorial panels routed through a stronger ISC. The Standing Committee reviewed its recommendations in 2017–18, and there the matter rests.
Why it remains stunted
- Structure. The Council is advisory, and the Prime Minister both convenes it and chairs it, so the Union presides over disputes to which it is usually a party. No group of states can requisition a meeting.
- Politics. It was born under a coalition government dependent on regional parties. Under single-party majorities, a meeting mainly gives opposition Chief Ministers a joint platform. This fits W. H. Morris-Jones‘s bargaining federalism: the forum flourishes only when states have leverage at the Centre.
- Displacement. The GST Council, the NITI Aayog Governing Council and revived Zonal Councils now carry much of its agenda. Daniel J. Elazar‘s shared rule has migrated to sectoral bodies.
The counter-view
The Council is not a dead letter. It processed the Sarkaria and Punchhi reports, and its 2016 meeting took up Aadhaar-linked benefit transfers, school education and internal security. Consensus-based deliberation may also suit a diverse federation better than binding votes.
Conclusion
The cost of disuse is now visible. Kerala’s borrowing suit, Tamil Nadu’s NEET suit and the 2025 Presidential Reference on assent show federal friction being settled in court rather than in council. A statutory footing, a fixed calendar, an independent secretariat and use of clause (a) would let the Council come of age. Without them it remains a mandate without a practice.