ABSTRACT
Before the unification of the country by King Prithvi Narayan Shah, Nepal was ruled by many small principalities. The systems of governance in those principalities were deeply rooted in their own traditions. The Kiratas, the Lichhavis, the Mallas and the Shahs all had provisions for regulating their behaviour in the use of water – especially for irrigational use, as was only natural in an agrarian economy. Annual repair and maintenance of canals, rights to drinking water and irrigation on a first-come-first-served basis, fines for cutting down trees around water sources and regulations specifying that petty cases relating to water should be settled at the local level were some of the important provisions for managing water in those times.5 These arrangements were developed over a long period of time in different principalities in different ways. However, the first unified national code for the dispensation of justice came into existence only in 1853.6 This code, among many other things, provided for rights over water as incident to ownership of land. Later on, in 1964, this code was amended, improvements were made and a new national code was introduced.7 The chapter of the code on land cultivation provided inter alia that:
No person shall get water unless the person who has constructed the ditch [kulo] gets the water first. After the upstream field is filled with water, the owner of the field further downstream may take water to his field. In case any obstruction is caused to the upstream landholder, the person next to him may take water and plant rice.
