Is Article 262 an adequate constitutional framework for resolving inter-State river disputes in a climate-variable future? Discuss.

Article 262 lets Parliament provide for adjudicating inter-State river disputes and bar courts from hearing them. Parliament used it to pass the Inter-State River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act, 1956. The framework works for dividing water once. It does not work well for sharing scarcity every year as monsoons become erratic.

Where the framework works

• Expert adjudication: tribunals, not general courts, decide technical questions of flows and shares. The 2007 Cauvery award set the basin shares.
• Bodies that enforce the award: under Section 6A, the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) set releases in real time. In October 2026 the CWRC ordered 3,000 cusecs at Biligundlu even though Karnataka's reservoirs had a 55.35% inflow deficit [1].
• Flexibility: Parliament can reform the system by statute, without amending the Constitution [2].

Where it falls short in a climate-variable future

• Delay: tribunals have taken decades. The Ravi–Beas tribunal ran for over three decades without a final award [3], and the Cauvery tribunal took 17 years.
• No rule for dry years: awards fix shares for a normal year, with no written formula for sharing a shortfall. Tamil Nadu sought 18.402 tmcft but got 3.88 tmcft, and no method was published for the cut [1].
• Data controlled by the States: Tamil Nadu claims a 13.829 tmcft backlog, while Karnataka says it released 1.861 tmcft in excess [1]. Without an agreed ledger, every order is reopened.
• Disputes return to court: appeals under Article 136 reopen awards, as the 2018 Cauvery verdict did, so awards are not final.
• Fragmented powers: water falls under Entry 17 (State List), subject to Entry 56 (Union List). Groundwater, catchment health and climate projections fall outside how tribunals are designed.

Way forward

• Revive the ISRWD (Amendment) Bill, 2019. It passed the Lok Sabha but was never enacted. It proposed a Disputes Resolution Committee (one year, extendable by six months) and a single permanent tribunal (two years, extendable by one) [2]. The Standing Committee on Water Resources had already examined the 2017 version [4].
• Write a distress-sharing formula into law, run independent telemetry of flows and reservoirs, and review awards periodically against climate data.

Article 262 is a necessary base but not a sufficient one. It settles who gets how much, but not how to share less. Adding a codified distress-sharing rule, neutral data and time-bound dispute settlement would make it fit a climate-variable future. That would keep cooperative federalism and SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) at the centre of river governance.