Inter-State Relations and Zonal Councils: Articles and PYQs

A federation works only if its units can live with one another. The Constitution therefore does not stop at dividing powers between the Union and the States; Part XI and Part XIII also lay down how the States are to deal with each other, how their public records and court orders are to be honoured across borders, how their quarrels over river water are to be settled, and through which forums they are to sit together. Around these provisions the Government of India has built a set of advisory bodies, the Inter-State Council and the Zonal Councils, that examiners ask about repeatedly because every fact in the topic is an article number, an Act, a year or a list of member states.

Full faith and credit: Article 261

Article 261 says that full faith and credit shall be given throughout the territory of India to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of the Union and of every State. A birth certificate, a land record or a decree of a court in one State is therefore valid evidence in every other State. The same article allows Parliament to lay down the manner in which such acts and records are to be proved, and it provides that a final judgment or order of a civil court in any part of India is executable anywhere in India. This clause prevents the States from treating each other as foreign countries.

Inter-state river water disputes: Article 262

Article 262 empowers Parliament to provide by law for the adjudication of disputes relating to the waters of inter-State rivers and river valleys. Its second clause lets Parliament bar even the Supreme Court from entertaining such a dispute, which is a rare exception to the general original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article 131. Parliament used this power to pass two laws in 1956: the River Boards Act, under which the Centre may set up a river board to advise the States on a river valley, and the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, under which the Centre refers a dispute to a tribunal when it is satisfied that negotiation has failed. The award of such a tribunal, once published in the official gazette, binds the parties with the force of a decree. Tribunals have been set up for the Krishna, Godavari and Narmada in 1969, for the Ravi and Beas in 1986, for the Cauvery in 1990 and for the Mahanadi in 2018.

The Inter-State Council: Article 263

Article 263 allows the President to establish by order an Inter-State Council charged with inquiring into and advising upon disputes between States, investigating and discussing subjects of common interest, and making recommendations for better coordination of policy and action. Acting on the Sarkaria Commission report, the President set up the Inter-State Council in 1990. The Prime Minister is its chairman; its members are the Chief Ministers of all States, the Chief Ministers of Union Territories having legislatures, the administrators of other Union Territories and six Union Cabinet Ministers nominated by the Prime Minister. Its recommendations are advisory. A Standing Committee of the Council, chaired by the Union Home Minister, was constituted in 1996 for continuous consultation.

Zonal Councils and the North Eastern Council

The Zonal Councils are statutory, not constitutional, bodies. They were created by the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, to arrest the growth of acute regionalism after linguistic reorganisation and to build the habit of cooperation in planning, border questions, linguistic minorities and inter-state transport. The Union Home Minister is the chairman of each council, while the Chief Minister of a member State serves as vice-chairman by annual rotation. Each State sends its Chief Minister and two other ministers, and a nominee of NITI Aayog and the chief secretaries act as advisers.

The north-eastern States were left out of this scheme and were given a separate body by the North Eastern Council Act, 1971, with its headquarters at Shillong. Sikkim was added to it in 2002. Since an amendment of 2018 the Union Home Minister is the chairman of the North Eastern Council and the Minister for Development of the North Eastern Region is its vice-chairman.

Freedom of inter-state trade and commerce

Part XIII makes India a single economic unit. Article 301 declares that trade, commerce and intercourse throughout the territory of India shall be free. Article 302 lets Parliament impose restrictions in the public interest, while Article 303 forbids both Parliament and the State legislatures from giving preference to one State over another, except that Parliament may do so to deal with a scarcity of goods. Article 304 allows a State to tax goods imported from other States only if it taxes similar local goods in the same way, and to restrict trade only with the previous sanction of the President. Article 307 empowers Parliament to appoint an authority to carry out these provisions.

Commissions that studied these relations

Three bodies shaped the present arrangements. The Administrative Reforms Commission set up a study team under M. C. Setalvad in the 1960s. The Sarkaria Commission, appointed in 1983 under Justice R. S. Sarkaria, submitted its report in 1988 and recommended a permanent Inter-State Council. The Punchhi Commission, appointed in 2007 under Justice M. M. Punchhi, reported in 2010 and suggested a stronger role for the Council in resolving inter-state disputes.