While the move is to quicken the pace of resolution, the real test for the central government would be in demonstrating fair play and managing post-award squabbling.
- Prasanna Mohanty
- New Delhi
- July 31, 2019
- UPDATED: July 31, 2019 12:28 IST
The tribunals dealing with inter-state river water disputes are legendary for the time they take to give awards. The Ravi-Beas Water Disputes Tribunal has been at it for 33 years, the Cauvery one for 29 years and others (adjudicating the Krishna, Narmada and Godavari waters) close to a decade or more and yet no award is a sight for any of it.
The Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation had identified five major causes for the delays: (a) no strict time limit for adjudication as the central government kept extending tenure of the tribunals indefinitely, even though they were to resolve disputes within 5 years (b) no limit for publishing the report of a tribunal (c) no upper limit for retirement of the chairperson or other members (d) in case of any vacancy, the Chief Justice of India to nominate a person which took time and caused considerable delays and (e) absence of data on river basins.
The purpose of the Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill 2019, 2 introduced in the Lok Sabha last week, is to address these shortcomings by amending the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act of 1956.
What the Bill provides for
Two-tier resolution mechanism: The Bill provides for a two-tier dispute resolution mechanism. Once a dispute arises, it would be referred to a Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC) - to be headed by a secretary-level officer of the central government with experts from relevant fields. If the committee fails, then the dispute will go to a centralised (single standing) tribunal with multiple benches - instead of the multiple tribunals that exist now.
With the setting up of such a tribunal, all existing tribunals would be dissolved and the pending cases transferred to it.
The decision of the tribunal would be final, binding on states and have the "same force as an order of the Supreme Court". However, in case the dispute persists, the matter could be referred back for reconsideration.
(The decision of the tribunal can, nevertheless, be challenged before the Supreme Court through special leave petitions )
Appointments: The tribunal would have a chairman, a vice-chairman and six members - three judicial and three experts. They would be appointed by the central government on the recommendation of a selection committee, which would comprise of the Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India and ministers for law and justice and Jal Shakti.
The central government may appoint two or more experts (to be called assessors) serving in the Central Water Engineering Service and of the chief engineer rank.
Retirement: The term of office of the chairperson and vice-chairperson would be five years or until the age of 70 years. That of the other members would be co-terminus with adjudication of dispute or until 67 years.
Time limit: The maximum time allowed for the DRC would be one-and-half years, for the tribunal three years and for reconsideration another one-and-half years - taking the total to six years.
There would be no requirement of publication of the tribune's report.
Basin-wise data: The Bill also provides for a transparent data collection system at the national level for each river basin, the lack of which has been felt for a long time.
Why the amendment
The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill says the number of inter-state water disputes is on the rise due to an increase in demand for more water by states. Though the existing Inter-State River Water Disputes Act of 1956 provides for a legal framework to address such disputes, it suffers from many drawbacks, which this Bill seeks to address.
These drawbacks include lack of provision for fixing a time limit for adjudication nor for any upper age limit for the chairperson or a member of the tribunal. Nor there is any mechanism for the continuation of work in case of any vacancy or time limit for publishing the report of the tribunal.
The Bill seeks to streamline the adjudication of such disputes and make the present legal and institutional architecture robust to overcome these challenges.
Fear of centralisation of power and impartiality
Some political parties, like the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the BD in Odisha, have raised serious concerns about the appropriation of more powers by the central government to decide water disputes between states. So do environmentalists.
Instead of the Chief Justice of India nominating persons for appointments, it would now be the central government making such appointments through a selection committee.
Environment lawyer Shilpa Chohan, who has had a long association with the Narmada water dispute, sees this as a part of centralisation of power being witnessed around us, saying that the central government wants more and more control over water.
She says the real test of the change would be when an award is given (by the tribunal) and yet the dispute persists. "This move can be considered good if the central government can resolve the dispute then", she remarks.
Environmentalist Himanshu Thakkar, who too has had a long association with water disputes, says mere tinkering with the system without developing a proper understanding of the nature and process of the resolution would not help.
He says it needs to be understood that disputes arise when an upper riparian state (or a country) build a large dam or diverts the massive amount of water, leading to lower availability of water for the lower riparian state (or country).
When it comes to resolution, he says the tribunals look at a river as a channel of water and its distribution, ignoring that it is a complete ecosystem and that water in a river depends on the state of its basin and catchment area. It also depends on the extraction of groundwater. These aspects are ignored by the tribunals. Moreover, a state does not represent a river basin or all its stakeholders (the people using river water), which is why the Narmada tribunal' award created a conflict between the states and their people.
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