Examine the efficacy of available mechanisms for resolving Inter-State disputes in India. (2012)
Federalism also runs along a horizontal axis: states must share rivers, fix boundaries and divide assets. The Constitution and two 1956 statutes supply adjudication, deliberation and prevention. Their efficacy has been low, less because of design than because of the incentives of those who must use them.
The mechanisms and their record
| Mechanism | Design | Efficacy |
|---|---|---|
| Article 131 | Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction over legal rights between governments | Suited to legal questions (West Bengal’s CBI suit held maintainable, July 2024); too slow for territory, e.g. Maharashtra’s Belagavi suit pending since 2004 |
| Article 262 + Inter-State River Water Disputes Act 1956 | Ad hoc tribunals whose awards bind like a Supreme Court decree; courts barred | Cauvery took from the 1990 tribunal to the 2007 award to the 2018 judgment; Krishna-II has sat since 2004; the Ravi–Beas award remains unnotified |
| River Boards Act 1956 | Joint basin planning to prevent disputes | Not one board constituted in seventy years |
| Inter-State Council (Art. 263) | Clause (a): inquiry into inter-state disputes | Clause (a) never conferred; no dispute referred; no meeting since 2016 |
| Zonal Councils | Border, transport and reorganisation issues | Revived, with about 83% of 1,580 listed issues resolved; administrative irritants, not allocations |
| Commissions and Article 3 | Inquiry; Parliament may redraw boundaries | The Mahajan Commission (1967) was accepted by Mysore, rejected by Maharashtra and never implemented |
| Negotiation and Union mediation | Chief Ministers, with the Home Ministry as facilitator | Assam–Meghalaya MoU (29 March 2022) settled six of twelve areas; Assam–Arunachal Namsai Declaration (15 July 2022) and MoU (20 April 2023), with pillars going up from February 2026 |
Examining efficacy
Adjudication decides but rarely delivers. Awards bind only after the Union notifies them, and nothing enforces them without a scheme under Section 6A. Narmada (1980) and Cauvery got one, the latter’s Cauvery Water Management Authority (2018) under court order. Article 136 lets the Supreme Court reopen awards that Article 262 was meant to insulate. The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill 2019 proposed a permanent tribunal and a mediation committee, but it lapsed in 2024.
Deliberative bodies lack teeth. The Inter-State Council and Zonal Councils are advisory, and the Union chairs them and sets their agenda.
Politics explains the pattern. Under Rajni Kothari‘s Congress system, the party high command absorbed inter-state friction. Cauvery, Ravi–Beas and Belagavi hardened once regional parties took power in the disputing states. In W. H. Morris-Jones‘s bargaining federalism, a Chief Minister who concedes pays at home, and one who litigates for decades does not. The Union gains nothing by ruling against a state it must also govern with, so Parliament has never used Article 3 to settle a contested boundary. Where it works. The northeastern boundary settlements came with aligned governments, an active Home Ministry, agreed criteria and easy areas settled first. The GST Council works because its voting rule makes deadlock costly.
Conclusion
India’s mechanisms are adequate on paper but work only with political alignment or a rule that penalises deadlock. The remedies are a permanent water tribunal with compulsory mediation, basin authorities under the dormant River Boards Act and an Inter-State Council actually given clause (a). Without them, disputes will keep being managed rather than resolved.