A Single Tribunal For River Water Disputes Proposed -

In News

The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2019 which has a feature of setting up a single tribunal for river water disputes has been approved by the Union Cabinet.

In-Detail

The Bill if passed will amend the Inter State River Water Disputes Act, 1956.
A single tribunal with multiple benches as proposed in the bill will help streamline adjudication of inter-state water disputes.
The bill has provisions for adjudication of the disputes in a time-bound manner.
As per the 1956 act, when a state government requests for adjudication with respect to inter-state river water dispute, the central government used to constitute a tribunal. This has led to the formation of over a dozen tribunals.
With the new Bill, there will be a permanent office space for the tribunal and proper infrastructure to handle the disputes.
This saves time and resources in the form of avoiding the need for establishing office space and other logistics every time a tribunal is formed.
As per the Bill, the Dispute Resolution Committee that is set up by the union government will resolve the dispute in 18 months.
The tribunal will handle all those cases where dispute resolution was not possible through negotiations.
The chairperson of the tribunal will assign the dispute to a bench for adjudication.
The Bill also proposes changes to the members’ composition in the tribunals. A technical expert can also head a tribunal.
Presently, only the members from the Judiciary, nominated by the Chief Justice are part of the tribunals.

Article 262

Article 262 of the Constitution allows the central government to have a role in adjudicating river water sharing disputes between states.
The Act of 1956 was enacted in this regard.
It has not given the desired results with disputes lingering for long periods (in some cases for over two decades).

The Bill, when passed will give a flip to river water dispute adjudication and make for timely judgments

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