'Cooperative federalism is often invoked by courts to resolve jurisdictional overlaps between the Centre and States.' Examine this in the context of fisheries regulation in India's coastal waters.

Cooperative federalism treats the Centre and States as coordinate partners rather than rivals. Marine fisheries — where a State's regulatory writ ends at 12 nautical miles and the Centre's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) begins — is where courts have most recently deployed this idea, harmonising two rule-books instead of invalidating either.

The jurisdictional overlap in coastal waters

• States regulate fishing within territorial waters (up to 12 nautical miles) through Marine Fishing Regulation Acts and Rules; Tamil Nadu's Rules, 2020 bar purse seine nets and pair trawling (Rule 17(7)) and provide for specified channels for vessel transit (Rules 15(5)–(6)) [1].
• Beyond that line, the Centre acts under the Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, EEZ and Other Maritime Zones Act, 1976 [2], under which the Sustainable Harnessing of Fisheries in the EEZ Rules, 2025 were notified on 4 November 2025, prioritising fishermen cooperatives and FFPOs [3].
• The friction is structural: gear banned in State waters is conditionally permitted in the EEZ, yet vessels must cross State waters to reach it.

How the judiciary has bridged the gap

• In September 2026, a Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed Tamil Nadu to frame "specified channel" rules for purse seine vessels transiting to the EEZ, expressly invoking cooperative federalism [1].
• Earlier, in February 2023, the Court conditionally allowed purse seine fishing beyond territorial waters — registered vessels, approved Vessel Tracking System, twice weekly [1].
• The Court thus supplied a coordination mechanism, not a verdict on supremacy.

Merits and limits

• Merit: it protects the State's conservation and artisanal-livelihood concerns while enabling the Centre's blue economy push in the EEZ [3].
• Limits: judicially directed rule-making edges into executive space; enforcement still hinges on State capacity for tracking and timely access-pass clearance; and cooperative federalism remains a persuasive value, not a justiciable rule of distribution.

Judicial invocation of cooperative federalism works best as an interpretive bridge, buying time for political coordination rather than replacing it. A negotiated national framework — through Centre-State consultation on gear norms, shared surveillance and transit corridors — would make such coordination institutional rather than episodic, giving substance to the constitutional promise of a Union that governs its seas cooperatively.