Centre’s role in inter-state conflict

The Karnataka-Maharashtra border imbroglio has raised its head again. While Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister Fadnavis attacked Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on the issue, the latter publicly stated that Kannada-speaking areas in Maharashtra ought to belong to Karnataka. Meanwhile, KSRTC buses plying from Maharashtra to Karnataka have been vandalised. Not to be outdone, protesters threatened to burn an effigy of Eknath Shinde in Belagavi. A theory doing the rounds is that the Karnataka BJP is masterminding the entire outcry and response to cleanse itself of the charges that it promotes Hindi and has displayed antipathy towards Kannada, keeping the coming elections in mind.

PM Modi has often referred to the federalism practiced in India as cooperative federalism. In his classic, The New Federalism, noted political scientist Michael D Reagan states: “The old system of federalism described a non-relationship between the national and state governments. The new-style federalism refers to the multi-faceted positive relationship of shared action. The meaning of federalism today lies in a process of joint action, not in a manner of legal statute. It lies not in what governments are but in what they do. It is a matter of action rather than structure. It is dynamic and changing, not static and constant.”

Also Read: Centre asks Maharashtra and Karnataka to form ministerial team to address border issue

PM Modi has been invoking cooperative federalism for some time now—in fact, even from the time he was Gujarat’s chief minister. However, on November 22 this year, a major confrontation was reported on the Assam-Meghalaya border. During the movement of timber along the West Karbi Anglong district of Assam and Mukro village of Meghalaya’s Jantia Hills, shots were fired, and five Meghalaya citizens and an Assamese forest guard were killed. This incident has brought to nought the claims of the Central Government, which had touted the March 2022 agreement between Assam and Meghalaya as a major success.

Strangely enough, both Fadnavis and Bommai belong to the same political party, while both Himanta Biswa Sarma of the Assam BJP and Conrad Sangma of Meghalaya are part of the NDA. While the jury is still out on whether national political parties must take a stand while their regional satraps slug it out on territorial lines, one thing is clear: no inter-state issue must degenerate into a dogfight.

The question often asked is: in a federal structure, what role does the Centre have to intercede or mediate a solution to a border or water dispute? The answer to this is the complex manner in which the Constitution has assigned a role to the Centre to hold sway over the states of the Indian Union with enhanced unitary principles. Articles 2 to 4, which are considered unusual provisions empowering Parliament to make laws for state reorganisation and also include the right to end the very existence of a state, appear to suggest that India is largely unitary.

Also Read: I want solution of border row with Karnataka, not politicise issue: Maharashtra CM Shinde

Under article 247 of the Constitution, Parliament can establish additional courts in any state of the Union. Under Article 248, Parliament has the power to make laws with respect to residual matters, including taxation, while Article 249 enables Parliament to make laws with respect to any matter in the State List. In fact, parliamentary laws take precedence over state laws under articles 251 and 254 of the Indian Constitution. In the event of a conflict, the state law will have to give in to the central law to the extent of repugnancy.

A state bill referred to under Article 254(2) or 288(2) of the Constitution requires the assent of the President in order to become effective law. Besides, Article 200 of the Constitution empowers the governor to reserve any bill for the consideration of the President, and these include subjects that are on the state list.

Under Article 207, the President may or may not give his assent to the bill and may even withhold it or direct the governor to return the bill to the state legislature for reconsideration. In various scenarios, the operation of the state legislative process is indeed subordinate to the Union executive.

With all these multifarious and extraordinary powers, the central government cannot remain a mute spectator while states declare war on each other. Meanwhile, the citizenry looks upon the central government with raised expectations, even with regard to the Krishna River Water Dispute Tribunal, which passed its final order way back in 2013; despite the passage of over a decade, the central government is yet to gazette the decision under Section 6(2) of the Inter States Water Disputes Act 1962.

(The writer is a Supreme Court advocate and senior leader of AAP)