How are disputes among states resolved?
- Recently, both Houses of Maharashtra Assembly passed a unanimous resolution to support a legal battle to resolve the border dispute.
- This came just days after the Karnataka Assembly passed a resolution reiterating Karnataka’s position on the issue.
Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute
- Border dispute over Belagavi, Karwar & Nipani in North Karnataka: When state boundaries were redrawn on linguistic lines as per States Reorganisation Act of 1956, Belagavi became part of the erstwhile Mysore state.
- Maharashtra’s claims: parts of Belagavi, where Marathi is the dominant language, should remain in Maharashtra.
- Establishment of Mahajan Commission in 1966: to resolve the border dispute in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala.
- Recommendations: Belgaum and 247 villages remain with Karnataka. Maharashtra rejected the report, and in 2004, moved the Supreme Court.
Other methods to resolve inter-state disputes
Judicial redressal
- The Supreme Court in its original jurisdiction decides imputes between states.
- Article 131: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Supreme Court shall, to the exclusion of any other court, have original jurisdiction in any dispute
- between the Government of India and one or more States; or
- between the Government of India and any State or States on one side and one or more other States on the other; or
- between two or more States, if and in so far as the dispute involves any question (whether of law or fact) on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends.
Inter-state Council
- Article 263: gives powers to the President to set up an Inter-state Council for resolution of disputes between states.
- A forum for discussion between the states and the Centre.
- Provision: “If any time it appears to the President that the public interests would be served by the establishment of a Council charged with the duty of
- inquiring into and advising upon disputes which may have arisen between States;
- investigating and discussing subjects in which some or all of the States, or the Union and one or more of the States, have a common interest; or
- it shall be lawful for the President by order to establish such a Council, and to define the nature of the duties to be performed by it and its organisation and procedure.
Some other inter-state disputes in India
- Assam-Meghalaya; Assam-Nagaland; Assam-Mizoram; Assam-Arunachal Pradesh and Maharashtra- Karnataka.