Discuss the various principles defining the Water Rights in India.

 Historically there have been following principles defining the water rights:

Riparian Doctrine: The private property right in water only to those whose land abutted the river was a viable theory so long as people living away from the river satisfied their needs from other sources. However, with the change in nature of utilisation/needs it is no more viable.

The Prior Appropriation Theory: According to this theory water in the natural course is the property of the public. It is in fact a suitable version of the riparian theory which puts the earlier appropriation right holders on advantage over all subsequent users.

The Territorial Sovereignty Theory: According to this theory the owner has an absolute user right. This notion of private property when extrapolated for the entire domain of natural resources generates territorial sovereignty principles.

The Equitable Apportionment Theory: Equity is a legal or a judicial notion therefore it provides basis for legal interpretation. It says: treat all claimants as equal right holders and through fair legal means apportion the resources in accordance with their individual needs.

The Equitable Utilisation Theory: It says distribute the resources equitably such that optimum utilization occurs for all concerned when all relevant factors are taken in to account. It is based on the guidelines laid down by (Article 5 of) the Helsinki rules for equitable utilization of water resources.

The Community Interest Theory: In 1851 the English common law made a distinction between bonus vacans and public–juris that is between no one’s property and every one’s property. The notion of every one’s property is appropriate for water resources , which are to be used by numerous communities all along their flow. As a principle of distribution this theory allows the groups, participatory in the distribution, to be defined as communities in various ways, as culture specific groups or domicile specific groups. Otherwise it is based on the equitable utilisation theory.

The Public Trust Theory: It emphasises that the principles of distributive justice need not be based only on the notion of private property, rather one should consider natural resources a common property and the sovereign or the state as its only trustee. This theory says that the state, which holds the natural water as a trustee, is duty bound to distribute or utilise the water in such a way that it does not violate the natural rights of any individual or group and safeguards the interests of the public and of ecology.

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