S NAGARAJA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE prayers sought for in this writ petition are. (a) To declare the Inter Water Dispute Act, 1956 and the River boards Act, 1956 are void and unconstitutional, the legislation traversing beyond Article 262 and Entry 56 of Union List, when the Act included tributaries, if any, in Section 4 (4) of the River boards Act; (b) To quash the constitution of Kaveri Water Dispute tribunal; (c) To declare that the agreements of 1894 and 1924 relied on by respondent 3 as defunct, void and otiose, not being saved by article 372 (1) of the Constitution of India.

(2.) HAVING regard to the nature of the reliefs sought for and the concurrent jurisdiction of Hon'ble Supreme Court under Article 32 of the constitution of India, learned Counsel for the petitioners was asked to make his submissions on the maintainability of this writ petition. On being heard, the matter was reserved for orders on 11-11-2002. Thereafter, since a memo was filed by the learned Counsel for the petitioner seeking to post the matter for further submissions, the matter was listed on 22-11-2002 and after hearing the Counsel for the petitioners, it was reserved for orders.

(3.) IN support of the submission that this Court can entertain the present petition and it is maintainable, Mr. S. P. Shankar, learned Counsel for the petitioners relied upon the following decisions.