Permanent tribunal for all river water disputes

The Government on Tuesday piloted a legislation in the Lok Sabha to replace all tribunals on the inter-state river water disputes with a single permanent tribunal with a mandate to decide a dispute within two years and its decision to have the same force as an order or decree of the Supreme Court.

The Centre may extend its period by maximum one year. Water Resources Development Minister Uma Bharti said the present system resulted in the disputes lingering on for ages as the government had to appoint separate tribunal for each inter-state dispute and no provision to fix time limit for adjudication, resulting in the disputes lingering on for two to three decades and work de-novo if the chairman or members of a tribunal die.

Awards of only three out of eight tribunals were accepted by the states while the new law will make the decisions of the tribunal as good as the Supreme Court decision instead of the states rushing to the Apex Court challenging the tribunal awards and thus lingering the disputes almost indefinitely. It was only in 2002 that the tribunal awards were made binding but even that did not prevent the states going to court.

The Bill envisages a permanent tribunal comprising a chairman, a vicechairman and six members to be appointed by the Supreme Court chief justice from the serving judges of the Supreme Court or High Court, fixing their upper age limit at 70 years.