S.S.Sandhawalia, C.J. - (1.) At the threshold of the portals of the Court, the very locus standi of the 23 writ petitioners to enter is frontally assailed on behalf of the respondents in this set of five cases. For the limited purpose of this motion order, it seems unnecessary to advert to the facts in any great detail. Suffice it to mention that the significant constitutional and even national issues sought to be raised in these writ petitions infer alia are:- (i) the constitutional validity of S: 78, Punjab Reorganisation Act, l966, and the very legislative competence of Parliament to enact the some in the context of Legislative Entry 17 of Last II and Entry 56 of List I of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution; (ii) even assuming that S. 78 aforesaid is intra vires, the Award given by the Prime Minister and notified by the Central Government in the gazette of March 24, 1978 purported to be under S. 78 above, is nevertheless ultra vires, illegal and void; (iii) that the subsequent agreement amongst the Chief Ministers of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan in the presence of the Prime Minister on 31-12-1981, is equally beyond the scope and ambit of S. 78 aforesaid; (iv) that in any case the exercise of the power under S. 78 (l) and under the proviso thereto is not in proper constitutional form; (v) that even on the assumption that the agreement of Chief Ministers of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan of 31-12-1981 is contractual in nature, the same does not satisfy the mandatory requirements of Art. 299 of the Constitution and is, therefore, void and unenforceable; (vi) that the State of Rajasthan being not a successor State within the meaning of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1988 and also being not a co-riparian State with regard to the rivers of Ravi add Beas was wholly ineligible for being. a party to the purported agreement; and (vii) that S. 78 aforesaid pertaining to the sharing of assets between the successor States in so far as sharing of water sources stood completed and exhausted by the Beas Project Report.
(2.) Apart from the pristinely legal issues, what is substantially at stake herein is the allocation of the waters of Ravi and Beas primarily betwixt the States of Punjab and Haryana. Though the challenge herein goes back to the Award of the Prime Minister notified on March 24, 1976, under S. 78, Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1988 (hereinafter called 'the Act'), subsequent agreement betwixt the States of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan of 31-12-1981, is more pointedly under attack.
(3.) Now it was not disputed before us that the issue of locus standi has primarily to be adjudged on the pleadings in the writ petitions end the basic lis and the primarily issues raised therein. Herein, an assiduous attack is first launched on the constitutionality of Section 78 of the Act itself. Indeed, the very competence of Parliament to enact this Section is challenged as being beyond entry 56 of List I of the seventh Schedule to the Constitution and being wholly within entry 17 of List II thereof. That being the position, there is no gain-saving the fact that the High Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution is indeed the proper if not the only forum for raising the. issue of the constitutionality and competence of Parliament to enact S. 78 of the Act. Indeed, the learned counsel for the respondents very fairly did not seriously controvert this position. It seems to be somewhat plain that ordinarily no legal bar can be raised and no specific provision could be pleaded before us which can forbid the writ petitioners to out into issue-the very validity of S. 78 of the Act. It follows, therefore, that if S. 78 of the Act is applicable or attracted in the circumstances, then the writ jurisdiction is the forum for seeking such a remedy.;