Environmental Law: Complete Notes

About this subject

Environmental Law is studied in six units, from what the environment is and how the laws to protect it grew, to how the law is responding to climate change. The water in a glass, the winter air and the plastic packet thrown away are all touched by these rules, so connecting each rule to daily life makes it easy to understand and remember.

Unit 1: Development of Environmental Laws in India

Meaning of environment

"Environment" comes from the old French environner, "to surround". In the simplest sense, it is everything that surrounds us: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land on which we live and grow food, the plants, animals and tiny organisms that share the earth with us, and things made by human beings, such as buildings, roads, dams and cities.

Part (scientific division)	Includes
Living part	Human beings, animals, plants and micro-organisms
Non-living part	Air, water, soil, sunlight and minerals

The parts are not separate boxes; they depend on one another all the time. Trees take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen; rain fills rivers, rivers water fields, and fields feed people and animals.

Legal definition: Section 2(a), Environment Protection Act, 1986

"Environment" includes water, air and land, and the inter-relationship which exists among and between water, air and land, and human beings, other living creatures, plants, micro-organism and property.

1. "Includes" shows the list is not closed, so courts can read the definition widely.
2. The law protects not only water, air and land but also the relationships between them.
3. Property is part of the environment, so the definition covers the human-made world too.

Environmental Pollution

Pollution means making the environment dirty or harmful by adding something that should not be there, or by adding too much of it.

Definitions under the Environment Protection Act, 1986

Provision	Term	Definition
Section 2(b)	Environmental pollutant	Any solid, liquid or gaseous substance present in such concentration as may be, or tend to be, injurious to environment
Section 2(c)	Environmental pollution	The presence in the environment of any environmental pollutant

• "Concentration": a little salt in food is fine, too much is harmful. Many substances are harmless in small amounts and harmful in large amounts, so pollution law mostly works by fixing limits, called standards (Unit 4).
• "May be, or tend to be": the law does not wait for actual injury; a substance likely to cause harm is enough.

Water Act and Air Act definitions

Water pollution (Water Act, 1974) includes any contamination of water, any change in its physical, chemical or biological properties, and any discharge of sewage or trade effluent. In each case the result must be likely to make the water harmful to public health or safety, to its legitimate uses, or to animals, plants and aquatic life.

Air pollutant (Air Act, 1981) means any solid, liquid or gaseous substance in the atmosphere in a concentration that may be injurious to human beings, other living creatures, plants, property or the environment.

Forms of pollution

Form	Main sources
Air	Vehicles, factories, power plants, construction dust, burning of crop stubble and garbage
Water	Sewage, industrial effluent, fertilisers and pesticides washed from fields
Land	Solid waste, plastic, mining waste, hazardous chemicals
Thermal	Hot water released by power plants

There is also noise, marine and radioactive pollution.

Factors Responsible for Environmental Pollution

1. Population growth: more people need more food, water, energy, housing and transport, and produce more waste.
2. Industrialisation: factories use raw materials and energy and release smoke, effluent and hazardous waste.
3. Rapid, unplanned urbanisation: many Indian towns grew faster than their sewers, drains and waste systems, so untreated sewage reaches rivers and garbage reaches open dumps.
4. Modern agriculture: chemical fertilisers and pesticides pollute soil and groundwater; burning crop residue adds to the winter smog of northern India.
5. Dependence on coal and oil for electricity and transport.
6. Deforestation and mining, which destroy the natural systems that clean air and water.
7. Throwaway lifestyle, symbolised by single-use plastic.
8. Poverty (often forgotten): a family cooking with wood or dung, or a slum with no toilets, is not choosing to pollute; it has no cleaner choice.

Externality

Behind all these factors lies one economic idea that explains much of environmental law. A cost shifted by one person on to others is what economists call an externality. A free market does not make the person pay for it, so the law must step in and make the polluter bear the cost. This is the heart of the polluter pays principle (Unit 2).

Tragedy of the commons

When a resource is open to everyone, like a village pasture, a lake or the air, each person gains by using a little more while the loss is shared by all. Everyone overuses it and the resource is ruined. So common resources need rules, made either by the State or by the community itself.

Environmentalism

As an organised movement, modern environmentalism grew in the industrial countries in the 1960s. In 1962 the American biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, showing how pesticides such as DDT were killing birds and entering the food chain. Public shock led to new laws, among them the National Environmental Policy Act of the United States, which introduced environmental impact assessment (Unit 4).

Conservation and preservation

Conservation	Preservation
Nature should be used wisely so that it lasts, e.g. cutting trees only as fast as they grow back	Some parts of nature should be left untouched, for their own sake
Indian example: a reserved forest managed for timber	Indian example: a national park where even grazing is banned

Indian law contains both strands.

The environmentalism of the poor

In rich countries the movement was often led by people worried about wilderness, beauty and health; in India it was often led by poor people defending their livelihood. When forests were cut, hill women lost fuel, fodder and water; when dams were built, farmers and tribal families lost their land. So Indian environmentalism is closely tied to social justice and is often called the environmentalism of the poor.

• Chipko movement: began in the early 1970s in the hills of today's Uttarakhand; villagers, many of them women, hugged trees to stop contractors felling them. In 1974, at Reni village, women led by Gaura Devi stopped the felling of their forest.
• Silent Valley (Kerala): people opposed a hydroelectric project that would have drowned a rare tropical forest. The project was dropped and the area declared a national park in 1984.
• Narmada Bachao Andolan: from the mid-1980s it questioned the displacement caused by large dams on the Narmada (its case is under Sustainable Development, below).

Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism

Why protect nature at all? There are two main answers (anthropos is Greek for a human being).

Point	Anthropocentrism	Ecocentrism
Centre	Human beings	The whole ecosystem; human beings are one member of the community, not its owners
Value of nature	Because, and to the extent that, it serves human needs	Value in itself, whether or not useful to us
Illustration	Rivers for clean water, forests for timber and rain, animals because useful or beautiful	A river, forest or species deserves protection because it exists and has its own place in the web of life
Thinkers	—	Aldo Leopold (land ethic); Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (deep ecology)
One-line test	What does nature do for us?	What do we owe to nature?

Between the two stands biocentrism, which gives value to every living being.

Most statutes began with an anthropocentric purpose: the Water Act protects water largely for public health and human uses, and the right to a clean environment under Article 21 is a human right to life. But Indian courts have moved towards ecocentrism.

Environmental Protection in Ancient India

The idea of protecting the environment is very old in India; ancient Indian texts treated nature with reverence.

• Prithvi Sukta (Atharvaveda): the earth is a mother and human beings her children.
• Sacred groves: small forests dedicated to a deity where no tree could be cut; not laws in the modern sense, but strong social rules.
• Kautilya's Arthashastra (a treatise on statecraft): treated forests as a State resource; provided officers to manage forest produce, punished cutting trees and damaging groves in certain places, and described protected forests where animals could not be killed.
• Ashoka's Fifth Pillar Edict: listed animals not to be killed and forbade burning forests without reason.
• Bishnoi community (Rajasthan): founded in the fifteenth century by Guru Jambheshwar; made protecting trees and animals a religious duty. In 1730 at Khejarli near Jodhpur, when soldiers came to cut khejri trees for the ruler, Amrita Devi and 363 members of the community gave their lives to protect them, one of the earliest environmental movements in the world.

The Colonial Period

Forest laws

For the colonial government, forests were mainly a source of timber and revenue; the railways, built from the 1850s, needed huge numbers of wooden sleepers.

Year	Development
1864	Forest Department set up; German forester Dietrich Brandis the first Inspector General of Forests
1865	First Indian Forest Act
1878	Stronger Act creating reserved, protected and village forests
1894	Forest Policy: the sole object of managing State forests was the public benefit; rights of users to be regulated
1927	Indian Forest Act consolidated the law; still in force (Unit 5)

The State gained control over vast forest areas. Customary rights of villagers and tribal communities, to collect fuel, graze cattle or practise shifting cultivation, were reduced to limited privileges or ignored. In practice "public benefit" meant the needs of the State. This is the root of a conflict Indian law is still trying to repair, as in the Forest Rights Act.

Scattered pollution and wildlife laws

British India had no general pollution law, only scattered provisions:

Law	Effect
Shore Nuisance (Bombay and Kolaba) Act, 1853	Removal of nuisances below the high-water mark in Bombay harbour
Oriental Gas Company Act, 1857	Punished the company if it fouled water
Indian Penal Code, 1860	Public nuisance an offence; separately punished fouling the water of a public spring or reservoir, and making the atmosphere noxious to health
Indian Fisheries Act, 1897	Punished poisoning water to kill fish
Bengal Smoke Nuisances Act, 1905; Bombay Smoke Nuisances Act, 1912	Controlled furnace smoke in the big cities
Elephants Preservation Act, 1879; Wild Birds and Animals Protection Act, 1912	Wildlife

Weaknesses: scattered and weak; made to protect property, public health in big cities and revenue, not the environment as such; light punishments; no specialised enforcement body.

Public nuisance survives today. From 1 July 2024 the Indian Penal Code has been replaced by the B.N.S., 2023: public nuisance is now Section 270, fouling water Section 279, and making the atmosphere noxious to health Section 280.

Independent India before 1972

The Constitution of 1950 did not speak of the environment directly, but contained seeds:

• Article 47 (Directive Principle): raise the level of nutrition and standard of living, and improve public health.
• Article 39(b): distribute ownership and control of the material resources of the community to serve the common good.
• Water, land, forests and protection of wild animals were in the State List, so States made most of the laws on them.

The first twenty-five years focused on growth: dams, steel plants, fertiliser factories and the green revolution. Some laws touched the environment indirectly, such as the Factories Act, 1948 (protecting workers from dangerous fumes) and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. The National Forest Policy, 1952 aimed at keeping one third of the land under forest. But the environment was not yet a separate concern of law or government.

The Stockholm Conference, 1972

The turning point came from outside. From 5 to 16 June 1972 the United Nations held its Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm, the first world conference on the environment. It adopted the Stockholm Declaration of 26 principles:

• Principle 1: man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.
• Principle 21: States have the sovereign right to exploit their own resources, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not damage the environment of other States or of areas beyond national jurisdiction.

It led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme; its opening day, 5 June, is World Environment Day.

India's Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, asked at the conference whether poverty and need are not the greatest polluters: developing countries cannot be asked to protect the environment by giving up development, and fighting poverty is itself part of environmental protection. This link between environment and development runs through all of Indian environmental law.

Developments in India after Stockholm

Year	Development
1972	National Committee on Environmental Planning and Coordination; Wild Life Protection Act
1974	Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act: first comprehensive pollution law; created the pollution control boards
1980	N.D. Tiwari committee recommended a separate department; Department of Environment created the same year; Forest Conservation Act
1981	Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act
1985	Ministry of Environment and Forests
2014	Renamed Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change

How Parliament Got the Power: Articles 252 and 253

A favourite examination puzzle: water is a State subject, so how could Parliament pass a Water Act?

Article 252	Article 253
If the legislatures of two or more States pass resolutions asking Parliament to legislate on a State subject, Parliament may do so for those States; other States may adopt the law later	Parliament may make any law to implement a treaty, an agreement, or a decision taken at an international conference
Used for the Water Act	Used for the Air Act and the Environment Protection Act

The Forty-Second Amendment, 1976

The Constitution (Forty-Second Amendment) Act, 1976 gave environmental protection an express constitutional place. It did three things:

1. Added Article 48A to the Directive Principles: the State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wild life of the country.
2. Added a new Part on Fundamental Duties. Article 51A(g): it shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures.
3. Moved forests and the protection of wild animals and birds from the State List to the Concurrent List as Entries 17A and 17B, so Parliament could make national laws on them, such as the Forest Conservation Act.

After the Seventy-Third and Seventy-Fourth Amendments, 1992, the Eleventh Schedule lists subjects for panchayats (such as soil conservation, social forestry, minor forest produce and drinking water) and the Twelfth Schedule lists subjects for municipalities (such as urban forestry, protection of the environment and promotion of ecological aspects). Environmental protection is thus a duty at every level of government.

Bhopal and the Environment Protection Act, 1986

On the night of 2–3 December 1984, methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited in Bhopal. Thousands died and lakhs were injured, one of the worst industrial disasters in history. It exposed three gaps: no general law on hazardous substances; no single authority with power to act against every kind of pollution; and no clear rule to make a dangerous industry pay quickly for the harm caused.

Response

• Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985: the Union government could represent all the victims.
• Environment Protection Act, 1986: an umbrella law giving the Central Government wide powers to protect and improve the environment, set standards, regulate hazardous substances and issue directions, including closure.
• Factories Act amended in 1987 to control hazardous processes.
• Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991: insurance for handling hazardous substances, and relief to victims without proof of fault.
• Absolute liability: created by the Supreme Court in 1986 in the Oleum gas leak case (Unit 3).

The Bhopal claims were settled in 1989 for US $470 million. In March 2023 a Constitution Bench dismissed the Union government's curative petition seeking more compensation.

From Rio to the Present

The Rio Earth Summit of 1992 made sustainable development the central idea of environmental policy.

Year	Development
1992	National Conservation Strategy and Policy Statement on Environment and Development; Policy Statement for Abatement of Pollution
1994	First notification on environmental impact assessment
1995, 1997	National Environment Tribunal Act; National Environment Appellate Authority Act. They did not work well and were later repealed by the National Green Tribunal Act
2002	Biological Diversity Act
2006	National Environment Policy; new EIA notification; Forest Rights Act
2008	National Action Plan on Climate Change
2010	National Green Tribunal Act
2023	Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act; forest law amended
2024	Water Amendment Act

Recently the direction has shifted again: many environmental offences have been converted into money penalties (Jan Vishwas Act, 2023 and Water Amendment Act, 2024), and new rules have appeared on waste, audit and carbon markets.

Public interest litigation

From the 1980s the Supreme Court opened its doors through public interest litigation, shaping the law more than any statute. Lawyers such as M.C. Mehta brought cases on the pollution of the Ganga, vehicle smoke in Delhi, the Taj Mahal and hazardous industries. Courts read new rights into Article 21, borrowed principles from international law, and supervised the government through continuing orders.

Unit 2: Principles of Environmental Law

Why principles matter

Statutes cannot foresee every situation; a new chemical, project or risk may fall between the words of a law. Principles fill such gaps: they guide the government in making policy, guide courts in interpreting statutes, and help judges decide cases where the statute is silent. Most were first stated in international documents such as the Stockholm Declaration and the Rio Declaration of 1992, and Indian courts read them into Article 21 and the environmental statutes.

How an international principle becomes Indian law

In the Vellore tanneries case (below), the Supreme Court said that the precautionary and polluter pays principles are part of the environmental law of the country, and that a rule of customary international law not contrary to domestic law is deemed part of it and will be followed by the courts. Parliament confirmed this: Section 20, National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 directs the Tribunal to apply the principles of sustainable development, precaution and polluter pays.

Sustainable Development

The master principle. In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, published Our Common Future.

Two key concepts:

1. Needs, especially the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given.
2. Limitations, imposed by the state of technology and social organisation, on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

Simply put, we may use nature but not use it up.

• Three pillars that must move together: economic growth, social development and environmental protection.
• Rio Principle 4: to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it.
• 2015: the United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals, to be achieved by 2030.

Use by Indian courts: a balancing test

Development is necessary because India must fight poverty, but development that destroys the environment defeats its own purpose. So courts ask whether a project can go ahead with safeguards or must be stopped. In the Vellore case the Supreme Court said sustainable development is part of customary international law and listed its salient features:

1. inter-generational equity;
2. use and conservation of natural resources;
3. environmental protection;
4. the precautionary principle;
5. the polluter pays principle;
6. obligation to assist and cooperate;
7. eradication of poverty; and
8. financial assistance to developing countries.

Most other principles in this unit are, in a sense, parts of sustainable development itself.

Intergenerational Equity

• Stockholm Principle 1: responsibility to protect the environment for present and future generations.
• Rio Principle 3: the right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet the developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations.

Unborn generations are protected because courts can read their interests into the right to life, governments can plan resource use so that it lasts, and children can go to court on behalf of the future (Unit 6).

Intragenerational Equity

Intragenerational equity means fairness within the present generation. Benefits and burdens are not shared equally: the rich enjoy electricity from a dam while tribal villagers lose homes to its reservoir; a city enjoys clean streets while its garbage is dumped next to a poor settlement. The principle asks that benefits and burdens be shared fairly and the needs of the poor be given priority.

• Rio Principle 5: eradication of poverty is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.
• Between nations: it appears as common but differentiated responsibilities.
• Within India: rehabilitation of displaced people, the Forest Rights Act, and courts' protection of the livelihood of the poor.

Intergenerational equity	Intragenerational equity
Fairness between generations	Fairness within the present generation
Stockholm Principle 1; Rio Principle 3	Rio Principle 5

The Precautionary Principle

Rio Principle 15: In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

Why needed: science is often slow and uncertain, while some harm is permanent. An extinct species cannot be brought back; poisoned groundwater may take decades to clean. If the law waited for complete proof, the harm would already be done. So precaution tells the decision-maker to act early when there is a credible threat of serious harm.

The Prevention Principle

Environmental harm should be prevented before it happens rather than repaired afterwards. Prevention is better than cure, and usually cheaper. In international law the principle grew from disputes between neighbours.

In Indian law prevention is built into the whole regulatory system: consent before setting up a factory under the Water and Air Acts; environmental clearance before work on a big project; standards limiting discharges; and Section 5 of the Environment Protection Act, which lets the government close an industry before it causes more harm.

Prevention	Precaution
Known risks	Uncertain risks
Untreated tannery effluent is known to harm soil, so treatment is required	How a new chemical will behave is unknown, so the law acts carefully before the science is complete

The Polluter Pays Principle

The person who causes pollution must bear its cost. The idea came from economics: in 1972 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recommended that the polluter bear the cost of pollution prevention and control measures, so that the price of goods reflects their true environmental cost. Rio Principle 16 asks national authorities to promote the internalisation of environmental costs, taking into account the approach that the polluter should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution. Polluter pays turns the externality (Unit 1) back into the polluter's own cost.

Indian courts gave the principle a wider meaning than the economists did: the polluter must pay not only for preventing pollution, but also for compensating the victims and for restoring the damaged environment.

Economic (OECD) version	Wider Indian version
Polluter bears the cost of pollution prevention and control measures	Polluter pays for preventing pollution, compensating victims, and restoring the damaged environment

The Vellore case also applied polluter pays: the tanneries had to compensate affected people and pay the cost of restoring the damaged ecology.

Polluter Pays Principle: Illustration and Criticism

Criticism: if polluter pays is used only as a price, a rich polluter may treat it as a licence to pollute. That is why Indian law uses it together with prevention and precaution, and why serious polluters can also be closed down.

Common but Differentiated Responsibilities

This principle works mainly between nations. The responsibility is common, because the earth's environment is shared and every State must help protect it. It is differentiated, because States have contributed differently to the problem and have different capacities to solve it.

Climate instrument	How it reflects CBDR
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992	Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
Kyoto Protocol, 1997	Binding emission targets only for developed countries.
Paris Agreement, 2015	Every country makes its own contribution, but the Agreement still speaks of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.

India has always defended this principle, because its emissions per person are low and it still has to lift millions out of poverty.

The Public Trust Doctrine

Origin

• Roman law (Emperor Justinian): air, running water, the sea and the seashore are common to all mankind.
• English common law: the Crown owned the seabed and foreshore but held them for public use, for navigation and fishing.
• Joseph Sax, an American professor, argued in 1970 that courts could use this old doctrine as a powerful tool to protect the environment.

Content of the doctrine

Certain natural resources, such as air, the sea, rivers, lakes, forests and ecologically fragile land, are so important to the whole public that they cannot be treated as ordinary private property. The State holds them as trustee for the public. A trustee cannot sell or give away trust property for private benefit, or allow it to be destroyed.

Sequels:

• 2000: the Court could not impose a pollution fine without a trial under the relevant Act, because a fine is a criminal punishment; but it could award exemplary damages (damages meant to deter) as part of polluter pays.
• 2002: exemplary damages fixed at Rs. 10 lakh.

The Supreme Court later applied the doctrine to lakes, water tanks and public access to beaches, and there has been an attempt to use it for groundwater.

Environmental Justice

Origin: in 1982, residents of Warren County, North Carolina, mostly African American, protested against a toxic-waste landfill placed in their community. Studies then showed that hazardous facilities were often located near poor and minority communities, and the demand for environmental justice grew from this.

Dimension	Meaning	Test question
Distributive justice	Fair sharing of environmental benefits and burdens	Who bears the burden?
Procedural justice	Affected people must have information, a voice in decisions and access to courts	Who was heard?
Recognition	Respect for the identity, culture and knowledge of affected communities, e.g. tribal people who worship a hill	Whose way of life was respected?
Corrective justice	Those harmed must get remedies, including compensation and restoration	Who got a remedy?

Environmental injustice in India

Bhopal's victims were mostly poor families near the factory; city garbage dumps sit beside slums; tribal families are displaced by dams and mines while the power and minerals go elsewhere. In applying sustainable development, the real question is often who pays the cost and who gets the benefit:

• Narmada case: the Court let the project continue and trusted rehabilitation to protect the poor.
• Banwasi Seva Ashram case: the Court built a process to hear and compensate them.
• Niyamgiri mining case: the Court let the village assemblies (Gram Sabhas) decide.

The National Green Tribunal Act reflects this idea. Its preamble recalls India's participation in the Stockholm and Rio conferences and states that the right to a healthy environment is part of the right to life under Article 21. The Tribunal was created partly to give relief and compensation to persons harmed by environmental damage.

The Environmental Principles Applied Together

Principle	What it asks or demands
Sustainable development	Can the factory run without ruining the river?
Intergenerational equity	What will the river be like for the village's children?
Intragenerational equity	Will the fishing families simply bear the costs while others take the profits?
Prevention	Treatment of known effluents
Precaution	Proof of safety for uncertain chemicals, with the burden on the company
Polluter pays	The company pays for any harm and for restoration
Public trust doctrine	The State cannot hand the river over for private use
Environmental justice	Were the villagers informed and heard?

Rights, Duties and Remedies: From Principles to Rights

Indian law turned these principles into rights people can claim, duties they must perform, and remedies courts can give. The Constitution as first written contained no right to a clean environment; the courts read it into Article 21 (no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law). From the late 1970s, the Supreme Court read life as a life with dignity, not mere animal existence. Such a life is impossible with poisoned water and air, so, step by step, the right to life came to include the right to a healthy environment.

The Right to Environment

The right is now settled. Article 21 has been read to include clean air, safe drinking water, a sanitary environment and freedom from excessive noise. In the noise pollution case (2005) the Supreme Court stopped loudspeakers between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., except in closed premises and limited situations. Articles 14 and 19 also play a part: arbitrary clearances violate equality, and freedom of trade gives way to reasonable environmental restrictions.

Right against the adverse effects of climate change

The Rights of Nature

Beyond the human right to environment lies a bolder idea: can nature itself (a river, a forest, an animal) be a legal person able to sue for its own protection?

• Christopher Stone (1972), American law professor, essay Should Trees Have Standing?: the law has often extended rights to new holders, such as children, women, companies and ships, so why not rivers and forests? A guardian could speak for them in court, as for a child.
• Sierra Club v. Morton (1972): Justice William Douglas of the US Supreme Court argued in dissent that natural objects should be able to sue for their own preservation.
• Ecuador wrote the rights of nature into its Constitution in 2008.
• New Zealand passed a law in 2017 declaring the Whanganui River a legal person.

Rights of animals

Five freedoms for animals recognised in Nagaraja:

1. Freedom from hunger, thirst and malnutrition.
2. Freedom from fear and distress.
3. Freedom from physical and thermal discomfort.
4. Freedom from pain, injury and disease.
5. Freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour.

Later developments: in 2017 Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka amended the central Act in its application to their States to allow these sports under regulation. In May 2023 a Constitution Bench upheld the amendments: the amended laws and rules aimed to minimise the animals' pain and suffering, and the legislature could treat Jallikattu as part of the State's cultural heritage. These sports may now be held, but only under strict conditions.

Yet the core idea of Nagaraja, that animals have their own claim to be free from unnecessary suffering, remains part of the law.

Rivers as legal persons

Practical problems: who would be liable if a river flooded and killed people? How could one State appoint guardians for rivers flowing through several States? On Uttarakhand's appeal, the Supreme Court stayed the judgment in July 2017, so the declaration does not currently operate.

Later, the Uttarakhand High Court declared the entire animal kingdom a legal entity (2018), and the Punjab and Haryana High Court declared the Sukhna lake a living entity (2020).

Assessment: the rights of nature give strong symbolic protection and fit the ecocentric view, but raise hard questions: Who speaks for the river? What if the guardians are the very officials whose departments pollute it? Can a river be sued?

Environmental Duties

Level	Duty
State	Article 48A: protect and improve the environment. Article 47: improve public health. Statutes give specific duties to the government, pollution control boards and municipalities.
Citizens	Article 51A(g): protect and improve the natural environment and have compassion for living creatures. Article 51A(h): develop scientific temper and humanism.
Industries (statutory)	Section 7, Environment Protection Act: no person carrying on an industry may discharge pollutants beyond the standards. Section 9: the person responsible for an accidental discharge must prevent or reduce the pollution and inform the authorities at once.

Fundamental duties cannot be enforced against a citizen directly by writ, but they matter in three ways:

1. Courts use them to interpret laws and to judge whether a restriction on a right is reasonable.
2. A citizen who has a duty to protect the environment can ask the court to make the State perform its own duty.
3. Courts use them to issue directions that educate the public.

Procedural Environmental Rights

These rights concern process rather than outcome.

1. Right to information

One cannot protect what one does not know: villagers who do not know what a factory discharges cannot object. In a hazardous waste case brought by the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, the Supreme Court held that the right to information and community participation for the protection of environment and human health flows from Article 21. The Right to Information Act, 2005 lets every citizen seek information from public authorities, including pollution control boards, and requires authorities to publish certain information on their own. Information concerning the life or liberty of a person must be supplied within 48 hours.

2. Right to public consultation

The main example is the public hearing under the EIA Notification, 2006. Before a large project is appraised, the State Pollution Control Board holds a public hearing near the site after newspaper notice. Local people raise concerns; those who cannot attend may send written comments. The project proponent must record and answer the concerns, and the expert committee must consider them. Affected people thus get a voice before the decision, not after the damage.

Draft EIA Notification, 2020: the Union government proposed to cut the public hearing notice period from 30 to 20 days, exempt many categories of projects from public consultation, and allow projects started without clearance to be regularised later. Critics said it would silence affected communities; it drew a very large number of objections and was never adopted as a single new notification.

3. Access to justice

PIL allows any public-spirited person to approach the High Court or Supreme Court for those who cannot; courts have treated letters and even newspaper reports as petitions. Before the NGT, Section 18 of its Act allows an application by the person injured, the owner of damaged property, and any person aggrieved, including any representative body or organisation. Barriers remain: cost, distance, delay and the need for technical evidence.

Remedies for Environmental Harm

Indian law offers four kinds of remedies: (1) common law remedies; (2) statutory civil remedies; (3) statutory criminal remedies; (4) constitutional remedies.

Remedies under the Common Law

These are the oldest remedies, from the law of torts inherited from English common law.

1. Nuisance. Private nuisance is an unreasonable interference with the use or enjoyment of land. Public nuisance affects the public at large, such as pollution of a village pond. Under Section 91 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a public nuisance suit may be filed by the Advocate General, or by two or more persons with the court's permission, even without special damage.
2. Negligence. The victim must prove that the defendant owed a duty of care, broke it, and caused the damage.
3. Trespass. A direct physical intrusion on land, such as dumping waste on another's field.
4. Strict liability (Rylands v. Fletcher, 1868, English case). A person who brings onto his land something likely to do mischief if it escapes, and uses his land in a non-natural way, is liable if it escapes and causes damage, even without negligence. Exceptions: act of God, act of a stranger, fault of the plaintiff, consent, and statutory authority.

Limits in environmental cases: the victim must prove fault or causation, which is hard when pollution comes from many sources; litigation is slow and costly; damages come late and rarely restore the environment itself. So the Supreme Court developed a stronger rule.

Absolute Liability

Why the Court departed from the English rule:

1. Rylands v. Fletcher was a nineteenth-century rule made before modern hazardous industries existed; India must build its own law for a developing industrial society.
2. An enterprise carrying on a hazardous activity for profit must bear the cost of any accident as part of its business, and it alone has the resources to discover and guard against such hazards.

Point	Strict liability	Absolute liability
Exceptions	Allowed (act of God, act of a stranger, etc.)	None
Escape	Needs escape of a dangerous thing from the defendant's land	Covers any harm resulting from the hazardous activity
Amount of compensation	No such rule	Depends also on the size and capacity of the enterprise, so that it deters

The Bichhri village case applied this rule. Parliament gave it statutory form: the Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991 provides immediate relief to victims of accidents involving hazardous substances without proof of fault, and Section 17(3) of the NGT Act tells the Tribunal to apply the principle of no fault in the case of an accident.

Statutory Civil Remedies

• NGT: the most important is the Tribunal's power to give relief and compensation (below).
• Public Liability Insurance Act: every owner handling a hazardous substance must take an insurance policy. After an accident, victims get fixed amounts of relief from the Collector for death, injury or property damage, without proving fault. The relief is quick but small, and is in addition to any right to full compensation under any other law.
• Boards: under Section 33 of the Water Act and Section 22A of the Air Act, a Board may apply to a court to restrain a person likely to cause pollution.

Statutory Criminal Remedies

• Offence of public nuisance: the oldest tool, now Section 270 of the B.N.S.
• Magistrate's power to remove a public nuisance: formerly Section 133 CrPC, now Section 152 of the B.N.S.S., 2023. A District Magistrate, Sub-divisional Magistrate or empowered Executive Magistrate may order a person to remove an unlawful obstruction or nuisance from a public place, or to stop a trade or occupation injurious to the health or physical comfort of the community.

Offences under the pollution statutes

Under the Water Act, Air Act and Environment Protection Act, a court can take cognizance only on a proper complaint by the government, the Board or an authorised officer, or by any person who has given at least 60 days' notice of the alleged offence and of the intention to complain.

Recent trend: since the Jan Vishwas Act, 2023 and the Water Amendment Act, 2024, many violations of these three Acts lead to money penalties imposed by an adjudicating officer rather than prosecution in a criminal court. The Water Amendment Act, 2024, however, applies only in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, the Union territories and any State that adopts it by resolution; in other States the Water Act offences remain crimes. Offences under the Wild Life Protection Act remain crimes punishable with imprisonment.

Constitutional Remedies and Public Interest Litigation

The most powerful group of remedies. Article 32 lets a person move the Supreme Court to enforce fundamental rights; Article 226 lets a person move a High Court for fundamental rights and other legal rights. Since the right to a healthy environment is part of Article 21, environmental harm can go straight to these courts by writ.

Features of PIL

• Relaxed standing: ordinarily only the person whose right is violated can sue; in PIL any public-spirited person or organisation may approach the court for those who cannot (such as the poor) or for a public cause such as the environment.
• Epistolary jurisdiction: letters accepted as petitions.
• Commissions and expert committees appointed to find facts.
• Continuing mandamus: cases kept open for years with a series of orders to watch compliance.
• Compensation for violations of fundamental rights.

The Vellore case shows every feature: a citizens' forum sued for the public; the Court declared principles, ordered the government to set up an authority under the Environment Protection Act, and asked the Madras High Court to create a Green Bench. Through such cases the Supreme Court acted against polluting tanneries on the Ganga, moved Delhi's buses to compressed natural gas, and protected the Taj Mahal from industrial smoke.

Criticism: judges sometimes make policy, which is the government's job; orders are not always obeyed; courts depend on committees not accountable to the public; and the process can be misused, as in Subhash Kumar.

The National Green Tribunal

Why it was needed: environmental cases are technical and ordinary courts are slow; earlier special bodies did not work well; the Supreme Court in the Nayudu case suggested environmental courts with judges and scientists; and the Law Commission's 186th Report (2003) recommended environment courts. Parliament passed the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, and the Tribunal was set up on 18 October 2010. Principal Bench: New Delhi; zonal benches: Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai.

Composition (Section 4): a Chairperson; 10 to 20 judicial members (judges); 10 to 20 expert members with qualifications and experience in science, engineering or environmental administration.

Jurisdiction

Section 14 (original): all civil cases where a substantial question relating to environment (including enforcement of any legal right relating to environment) arises out of the implementation of the Acts in Schedule I. Limitation: 6 months from when the cause of action first arose, extendable by 60 days for sufficient cause.

Schedule I (seven Acts):

1. the Water Act;
2. the Water Cess Act;
3. the Forest Conservation Act;
4. the Air Act;
5. the Environment Protection Act;
6. the Public Liability Insurance Act;
7. the Biological Diversity Act.

Section 15 (relief and compensation): relief and compensation to victims of pollution and other environmental damage, restitution of damaged property, and restitution of the environment. Application within 5 years.

Section 16 (appeals): against specified orders under the listed Acts, including orders of appellate authorities under the Water and Air Acts, directions under Section 5 of the Environment Protection Act, decisions on diversion of forest land, and orders granting or refusing environmental clearance.

Section	Provision
19	Not bound by the Code of Civil Procedure or the law of evidence; guided by natural justice; regulates its own procedure
20	Must apply sustainable development, precaution and polluter pays
22	Appeal to the Supreme Court within 90 days, on the grounds of a second appeal under Section 100 CPC
26	Non-compliance: imprisonment up to 3 years, or fine up to Rs. 10 crore, or both; company: fine up to Rs. 25 crore
29	Bars civil courts from matters within its jurisdiction
33	Overriding effect of the Act

Powers of the NGT

The Sterlite Cases

These cases show the limits of the NGT and the long life of an environmental dispute.

In May 2018, during protests against the plant, 13 people were killed in police firing. The State Pollution Control Board refused to renew the consent to operate, and the State government ordered permanent closure. The company went to the NGT, which in December 2018 set aside the closure and allowed the plant to reopen.

The Sterlite Cases (continued)

Assessing the NGT

After more than 15 years, the NGT's record is mixed.

• Achievements: it has made environmental justice faster and cheaper, and has imposed large amounts of compensation on polluters and even on governments.
• Criticisms: posts of members often lie vacant; it relies heavily on committees of officials to find facts and monitor compliance; and the Supreme Court has corrected it when it went beyond its Act.

Unit 4: Law on Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution

Unit 3 dealt with the remedies courts give after harm is done. The pollution control laws try to stop pollution before it happens.

Two Models of Regulation

1. Command and control

The government commands, by fixing standards and requiring permits, and then controls, by inspecting and punishing those who break the rules. For example, the law may say that a factory may discharge no more than a fixed amount of a pollutant in each litre of effluent, and that it must get consent before it starts.

• Strength: certainty. Everyone knows the rule, and the regulator can act directly.
• Weaknesses: it needs a large and honest staff for inspections; it treats every factory alike, even when some can cut pollution cheaply and others cannot; and once a factory meets the standard, it has no reason to do better.

2. Economic incentives (the market-based model)

Instead of only commanding, the government changes prices, so that polluting becomes expensive and cleaning up becomes profitable. The tools include pollution taxes and charges, tradable permits, deposit and refund schemes, subsidies for clean technology, and certificates that can be bought and sold.

Point	Command and control	Market-based model
Method	Fix standards and permits; inspect and punish	Change prices so that polluting is expensive and cleaning up is profitable
Main strength	Certainty; the regulator acts directly	Pollution is cut where cutting is cheapest
Incentive to improve	None once the standard is met	It pays to do better

India uses both models

The pollution control laws are mainly command and control, but market-based tools are growing:

• From 1977, a water cess was charged on the water consumed by certain industries, until it was abolished in 2017 with the coming of the Goods and Services Tax.
• In 2019, Surat in Gujarat launched what was described as the world's first emissions trading market for particulate matter (the fine dust in smoke).
• Under the Energy Conservation Act, the Perform, Achieve and Trade scheme lets energy-intensive industries trade energy saving certificates.
• Extended producer responsibility for waste works through tradable certificates.

The Water Act, 1974 and the Consent Mechanism

The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, the first great pollution statute, was passed by Parliament under Article 252. Its aim is to prevent and control water pollution and to maintain or restore the wholesomeness of water. It created the Central Pollution Control Board under Section 3 and a State Pollution Control Board in each State under Section 4. The same Boards later received powers under the Air Act as well.

The consent mechanism

Section 24 forbids any person from knowingly causing or permitting any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, beyond the standards laid down by the Board, to enter any stream, well or sewer, or to fall on land.

Section 25: no person shall, without the previous consent of the State Board:

• establish any industry, operation or process, or any treatment and disposal system, likely to discharge sewage or trade effluent into a stream, well or sewer, or on land;
• bring into use a new outlet; or
• begin a new discharge.

Point	Consent to establish	Consent to operate
When	Before the plant is built	Before production starts
What the Board checks	The location, the process and the planned treatment system	That the treatment plant works
Conditions and duration	—	Limits for each pollutant, quantity of effluent, monitoring and reports; given for a fixed period and must be renewed

• Deemed consent: if the Board does not decide an application within four months, Section 25 treats the consent as given.
• Review (Section 27): the Board may review the conditions of a consent from time to time, and vary or revoke them.
• Appeal (Section 28): a person aggrieved by an order of the Board can appeal to the appellate authority.

The Central Pollution Control Board has divided industries into four categories by how much they pollute: red, orange, green and white. Red category industries, such as large chemical plants, face the strictest control; white category industries, which hardly pollute, do not need consent at all. The burden of regulation is thus matched to the risk.

Powers of enforcement

• Section 21: taking samples of effluent.
• Section 32: immediate action in an emergency.
• Section 33: application to a court to restrain a person likely to pollute a stream or well.
• Section 33A (since 1988): any direction in writing to any person, including a direction to close, prohibit or regulate an industry, or to stop the supply of electricity or water to it.

The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act, 2024

1. Imprisonment for many violations was replaced with money penalties of not less than ₹10,000 and up to ₹15 lakh, imposed by an adjudicating officer. An appeal lies to the NGT after depositing 10% of the penalty.
2. The Central Government, in consultation with the Central Board, may exempt certain categories of industrial plants from the requirement of consent.
3. The Central Government may issue guidelines on the grant, refusal and cancellation of consent.

Because water is a State subject, the amendment applied at first to Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and the Union territories; other States may adopt it by resolution.

The Air Act, 1981

The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 follows a similar pattern. Parliament made it under Article 253, to implement the decisions of the Stockholm Conference, and the same Boards enforce it.

• Section 19: the State government, after consulting the State Board, may declare any area an air pollution control area.
• Section 21: no person can establish or operate an industrial plant in such an area without the previous consent of the State Board.
• Section 22: a person operating such a plant may not emit air pollutants beyond the standards laid down by the Board.
• Section 22A: the Board may apply to a court to restrain a person likely to cause air pollution.
• Section 31A (added in 1987): the same power of directions as under the Water Act, including closure and the stoppage of electricity or water.

The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023 changed the penalties under the Air Act: most contraventions now attract a money penalty of not less than ₹10,000 and up to ₹15 lakh, imposed by an adjudicating officer, with an appeal to the NGT.

Air pollution in northern India needed special institutions:

• The Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas Act, 2021 created a permanent commission for Delhi and the surrounding States, with power to coordinate action and issue binding directions.
• The National Clean Air Programme, launched in 2019, sets targets for cities to reduce particulate pollution.

Air pollution has also reached the Supreme Court again and again. The firecrackers cases are the set every student should know.

Firecrackers and the Right to Breathe

The October 2018 directions:

1. Only improved crackers with reduced emissions, and green crackers, could be sold.
2. Series crackers (ladi) and the use of barium salts in fireworks were banned.
3. Crackers could be burst on Diwali only between 8 pm and 10 pm, and on Christmas and New Year only between 11:55 pm and 12:30 am.
4. Online sale through e-commerce websites was banned; only licensed traders could sell.
5. Community fireworks in pre-designated areas were to be encouraged.

The matter continues. In October 2025, the Court allowed the sale and use of approved green crackers in the NCR for a few days around Diwali, only during fixed hours, and only for products carrying a QR code, with monitoring by the pollution control boards. The approach remains one of strict regulation, not an open market.

The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986

The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 is the umbrella law. It came after the Bhopal disaster and was made under Article 253. Its purpose is the protection and improvement of the environment. Unlike the Water and Air Acts, it covers every part of the environment and fills the gaps left by other laws. Its definitions of environment, pollutant and pollution are covered in Unit 1.

Main provisions

• Section 3: the Central Government can take all measures it thinks necessary to protect and improve the environment, and to prevent, control and abate pollution; for example, laying down standards for environmental quality and for emissions and discharges, restricting the areas where industries may operate, laying down safeguards for hazardous substances, and inspecting premises.
• Section 3(3): the government may create authorities to exercise these powers, such as the authority created after the Vellore case, and the Central Ground Water Authority, set up after orders in a different case (see Unit 5).
• Section 5: the Central Government may direct any person, officer or authority in writing, and they are bound to comply. A direction may require the closure, prohibition or regulation of any industry, operation or process, or the stoppage or regulation of the supply of electricity, water or any other service. This is the power used to shut a polluting unit quickly.
• Section 6: power to make rules, for example on standards and hazardous substances.
• Section 7: no person carrying on an industry shall discharge pollutants beyond the prescribed standards.
• Section 8: hazardous substances must be handled only according to the prescribed procedure and safeguards.
• Sections 10 and 11: powers of entry, inspection and taking samples.
• Section 19: the citizen suit provision, which remains in the Act.

Penalties after 2023

Position	Consequence of a contravention
Old Section 15	Imprisonment up to 5 years, or fine up to ₹1 lakh, or both
After the Jan Vishwas Act, 2023	For most contraventions, a money penalty of ₹10,000 to ₹15 lakh, determined by an adjudicating officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India or Secretary to a State government, and paid into an Environment Protection Fund; appeal to the NGT within 60 days after depositing 10% of the penalty

Environmental Reporting, Audit and Due Diligence

Regulators cannot watch every factory every day, so the law asks industries to report on themselves and increasingly uses independent audits.

Environmental reporting

Rule 14 of the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986 applies to every person carrying on an industry, operation or process that needs consent under the Water Act or the Air Act, or authorisation under the hazardous waste rules. Such a person must submit an environmental statement for each financial year ending on 31 March, reaching the State Pollution Control Board by 30 September every year, in Form V. It reports the water and raw materials consumed, the pollutants discharged, the hazardous and solid waste generated, and the measures taken for pollution control and conservation of resources.

• Projects with an environmental clearance must also file regular reports on compliance with its conditions.
• SEBI requires the top 1,000 listed companies to publish a yearly business responsibility and sustainability report, which covers their environmental performance.

Environmental audit

In August 2025, the Union government made audits part of the regulatory system through the Environment Audit Rules, 2025, made under the Environment (Protection) Act:

• environment auditors are certified and registered by a designated agency;
• registered auditors are assigned to projects by a random method, so that a company cannot choose a friendly auditor;
• they verify compliance with clearances, waste rules and other laws, and can help assess the environmental compensation payable for violations.

Environmental due diligence

Before a company buys a factory, merges with another company, lends money for a project or buys land, it investigates the environmental risks attached. This matters because environmental liabilities often travel with the property and the business: in the Bichhri case, the polluters were made to pay the remediation cost with compound interest many years later. A buyer who ignores such risks may inherit them.

Due diligence checks whether the unit has valid consents to establish and operate, an environmental clearance where needed, forest and coastal clearances, hazardous waste authorisations, and registrations for extended producer responsibility. It also checks the compliance record, pending cases before the Board or the NGT, and any contamination of the soil or groundwater.

Environmental Impact Assessment

• The idea began with the National Environmental Policy Act of the United States.
• Rio Principle 17 asks States to carry out an EIA for proposed activities likely to have a significant adverse impact on the environment.
• India's first EIA notification came in 1994. The present law is the EIA Notification of 14 September 2006, issued under the Environment (Protection) Act.

The notification requires a prior environmental clearance for projects listed in its Schedule, such as mining, thermal power plants, river valley projects, many industries, and large building and construction projects. Prior means before any construction work or preparation of land, other than securing the land.

Point	Category A	Category B
Appraised by	Expert Appraisal Committee, at the Centre	State Expert Appraisal Committee, in the State
Clearance given by	Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change	State Environment Impact Assessment Authority

The four stages

1. Screening: for Category B projects, the State committee decides whether a full EIA report is needed. Those that need one are B1; those that do not are B2.
2. Scoping: the expert committee decides the terms of reference, the questions the EIA report must answer.
3. Public consultation: a public hearing near the site, conducted by the State Pollution Control Board and completed within 45 days of the request; and written responses from others who have a stake in the project.
4. Appraisal: the expert committee examines the final report and the outcome of the consultation, and recommends grant of clearance with conditions, or refusal.

After clearance, the project must file compliance reports. A clearance obtained by concealing facts or giving false or misleading information can be cancelled.

Weaknesses of the system

• The report is prepared by a consultant paid by the project proponent, so it may play down the risks.
• Some reports have been copied from other projects.
• Public hearings are sometimes held far from the affected people, or in a tense atmosphere.
• Monitoring after clearance is weak.

The courts have therefore stressed repeatedly that the process must be honest and complete.

The January 2020 conditions included:

• a commitment to carbon-neutral operations;
• the planting of ten trees for every tree cut;
• rainwater harvesting and protection of natural drainage channels;
• continuous monitoring of air, water and noise.

Ex Post Facto Environmental Clearance

An ex post facto clearance (Latin: after the fact) is a clearance sought after a project has started without prior clearance. The question has divided the Supreme Court for years.

Against it	In its favour
The whole point of EIA is to study the harm before work begins; a clearance after the harm is done defeats that purpose and rewards the violator	When a factory is already built and employs thousands, closing and demolishing it may cause great waste and hardship, especially if it now meets all the standards

The Union government responded in two steps:

• a notification of 14 March 2017 gave a one-time window of six months to projects that had started without clearance, to apply with a penalty and a plan to remedy the damage;
• an office memorandum of 7 July 2021 laid down a standard procedure for dealing with such violations on a continuing basis.

On 29 July 2026, a three-judge bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi gave the final decision:

1. Prior clearance is the rule. The prior clearance regime under the 2006 notification is mandatory and reflects the precautionary principle: look before you leap.
2. The 2017 notification was upheld as valid delegated legislation under Section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act, being a narrow, time-bound, one-time mechanism for past violations.
3. The 2021 office memorandum was quashed, because an administrative order cannot replace the statutory regime of prior clearance with a permanent path to clearance after the fact. The quashing is prospective: clearances already granted remain valid and pending applications may be decided, but no fresh applications will be entertained under either instrument.
4. The government may create a narrow amnesty only through a proper statutory notification, and the Court kept its own power under Article 142 to do complete justice in exceptional cases.

Waste Management

Badly managed waste pollutes land, water and air. The law treats different kinds of waste differently:

• By source: municipal waste (homes and markets), industrial waste (factories), bio-medical waste (hospitals), agricultural waste, and construction and demolition waste.
• By nature: hazardous (such as toxic chemicals) or non-hazardous; biodegradable (such as food waste) or non-biodegradable (such as plastic and glass).
• Special streams: plastic waste, electronic waste, used batteries, old vehicles, used tyres and used oil.

Indian waste law is made mostly through rules under the Environment (Protection) Act.

Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026

These replaced the 2016 rules and came into force on 1 April 2026. They deal with municipal solid waste.

• Every waste generator must segregate waste at source into four streams: wet, dry, sanitary, and special care waste (hazardous waste from homes).
• Bulk waste generators include entities with a floor area of 20,000 square metres or more, or using 40,000 litres of water or more a day, or generating 100 kilograms or more of waste a day. They must process their wet waste themselves as far as possible, under extended bulk waste generator responsibility.
• Local bodies must collect, transport and process the waste, and stop open dumping and burning. The Deonar dumping ground in the Ankita Sinha case shows what happens when such rules are ignored.

Other waste rules

• Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016: units generating or handling hazardous waste need an authorisation from the State Board; import and export of such waste is controlled in line with the Basel Convention of 1989.
• Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016: hospitals must segregate waste into colour-coded categories and send it for proper treatment.
• Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 (as amended): many identified single-use plastic items banned from 1 July 2022.
• Separate rules for electronic waste and batteries, and new rules of 2025 for construction and demolition waste and end-of-life vehicles.

Extended Producer Responsibility

Reasons for EPR:

1. It applies the polluter pays principle: the producer who puts plastic or electronics into the market should bear the cost of the waste, not the municipality and the taxpayer.
2. It encourages producers to design products that last longer, use less material and are easier to recycle.
3. It builds a proper recycling industry.

How it works in India: producers, importers and brand owners must register on a central portal run by the Central Pollution Control Board. Each year they get targets, for example to collect and recycle a certain share of the plastic packaging they put on the market. They can meet them by collecting the waste themselves, or by buying EPR certificates from registered recyclers who have actually processed the waste. A producer who fails to meet its target must pay environmental compensation. EPR now applies to plastic packaging, electronic waste, batteries, tyres, used oil, end-of-life vehicles, and construction and demolition waste from large projects.

The Pollution Control Boards

There is a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and a State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) in each State; in the Union territories, Pollution Control Committees do the same work. Each Board has a chairperson, members representing the government, local bodies, industry and other interests, and a member secretary who runs its daily work.

Point	Central Board	State Board
Provision	Section 16 of the Water Act and of the Air Act	Section 17 of the Water Act and of the Air Act
Functions	Advises the Central Government; coordinates the State Boards and gives them technical help; conducts research and training; lays down standards; collects and publishes data	Plans programmes to prevent and control pollution in the State; advises the State government; inspects industries and treatment plants; lays down effluent and emission standards; grants or refuses consent; acts against violators

Under the rules made under the Environment (Protection) Act, the Boards also enforce the waste rules and many other notifications. They are the front line of environmental regulation.

Challenges

1. Many Boards are short of staff, scientists and laboratories, while the number of industries keeps growing.
2. Weak independence: chairpersons and members are appointed by governments, sometimes without any environmental expertise.
3. Funding: funds come largely from consent fees, which can make the Boards depend on the very industries they regulate.
4. Weak enforcement: prosecutions are rare and slow, and many violations end with warnings.
5. Self-reported data: monitoring depends heavily on data reported by industries, although highly polluting industries must now install online continuous monitoring systems.
6. Little transparency or public participation in their decisions.

Reforms usually suggested: independent selection committees, qualified leadership, enough staff and laboratories, public disclosure of consent orders and monitoring data, third-party audits, and quick, graded penalties. The new audit rules and the system of adjudicating officers are steps in this direction.

Use and Conservation of Natural Resources

Beyond pollution, environmental law deals with the natural resources themselves (forests, wildlife, land, water and biodiversity) and with the people whose lives depend on them.

Resources and the people who depend on them

Millions of Indians depend directly on natural resources:

• Tribal families and forest dwellers depend on forests for food, fuel, medicine and worship.
• Pastoralists depend on grazing land.
• Fishing communities depend on rivers and seas.
• Farmers depend on land and groundwater.

Every law on natural resources therefore faces the same question: should the State protect resources by keeping people out, or by making people partners in conservation?

Meaning of Forest

In ordinary language, a forest is a large area covered with trees and undergrowth. In law the question is harder, because the answer decides which land is protected.

Classification of forests

1. By natural type: tropical evergreen, deciduous, thorn, mountain and mangrove forests.
2. By ownership: forests belonging to the government; to communities, such as the van panchayats of Uttarakhand; or to private owners.
3. By legal status: the Indian Forest Act, 1927 recognises three main categories (reserved, village and protected forests).

Legal categories under the Indian Forest Act, 1927

Reserved forest

The reserved forest enjoys the strongest protection. It is constituted in three steps:

1. The State government issues a notification under Section 4, declaring its intention to reserve an area.
2. A Forest Settlement Officer inquires into the rights that people claim over the land, and admits, commutes or rejects them.
3. Under Section 20, the area is declared a reserved forest.

After the declaration, clearing land, cutting trees, setting fire and similar acts are prohibited under Section 26, unless permitted.

Village forest, protected forest and unclassed forest

• Village forest (Section 28): the government assigns a reserved forest to a village community.
• Protected forest (Section 29): the rights of people are recorded but not settled in the same strict way, and the government regulates or prohibits particular activities by notification.

Beyond these are unclassed forests, which are forests in fact but are not notified under any category.

Category	Provision	Main feature
Reserved forest	Sections 4, 20 and 26	Strongest protection; claimed rights settled by a Forest Settlement Officer; listed acts prohibited unless permitted
Village forest	Section 28	Reserved forest assigned by the government to a village community
Protected forest	Section 29	Rights recorded but not settled in the same strict way; particular activities regulated or prohibited by notification
Unclassed forest	Not notified	Forest in fact, but not notified under any category

Forest cover and the National Forest Policy, 1988

• Official estimates put forest and tree cover at about one quarter of the geographical area of India.
• The National Forest Policy of 1988 aims to bring one third of the area under forest or tree cover, and two thirds in the hills.
• The Policy changed the purpose of forest management. Its principal aim is environmental stability and ecological balance, and the needs of local people for fuelwood, fodder and minor forest produce come first. Earning revenue is no longer the main goal.

Conserving Forests

The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980

This is the most important law for forest conservation. Before the Act, State governments could freely de-reserve forests and hand them over for farming, industry or mining. The Act stopped this.

Under Section 2, a State government or any authority needs the prior approval of the Central Government for four things:

1. de-reserving a reserved forest;
2. using any forest land for a non-forest purpose;
3. leasing forest land to a private person; and
4. clearing naturally grown trees for replanting.

Compensatory afforestation and net present value

When approval is given for diverting forest land, the project must:

• pay for compensatory afforestation, usually on an equal area of non-forest land; and
• pay the net present value of the forest lost.

The huge sums collected are managed under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016. The idea is that forest lost in one place is replaced in another, although critics point out that a young plantation cannot replace a natural forest.

The meaning of forest: the Godavarman case

Further features of the Godavarman litigation:

• It has continued for decades as a continuing mandamus.
• The Court set up a Central Empowered Committee to assist it.
• Through later orders, the Court built the system of net present value and compensatory afforestation funds.

The 2023 amendment

In 2023, Parliament amended the Act and renamed it the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980, which means the Forest Conservation and Augmentation Act. The amendment:

• added Section 1A, which limits the Act to two kinds of land:
  1. land declared or notified as forest under the Indian Forest Act or any other law; and
  2. land recorded as forest in a government record on or after 25 October 1980;
• exempted some land, such as land within 100 kilometres of the international borders needed for strategic linear projects of national importance; and
• treated zoos, safaris and eco-tourism facilities as forestry activities.

Critics said that the new definition could leave out large areas of unrecorded forest that the Godavarman order had protected.

Basis	Godavarman order (1996)	Section 1A (2023 amendment)
Test	Dictionary meaning of forest	Act limited to two kinds of land
Land covered	All statutorily recognised forests (reserved, protected or otherwise) and any area recorded as forest in the government record, irrespective of ownership	Land declared or notified as forest under the Indian Forest Act or any other law, and land recorded as forest in a government record on or after 25 October 1980
Approach	Protects a forest as it exists on the ground, not merely the label in a notification	Tied to notification or government record; critics say it could leave out large areas of unrecorded forest protected by the Godavarman order

Forest Rights

The other side of forest law concerns the rights of the people who live in forests. Colonial forest laws reserved vast forests without properly recording the rights of tribal communities. After independence, many of these people were treated as encroachers on land they had lived on for generations.

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, known as the Forest Rights Act, was passed to undo what its own preamble calls a historical injustice.

Rights recognised (Section 3)

• The right to hold and live on forest land under occupation for habitation or self-cultivation.
• The right of ownership of minor forest produce, such as tendu leaves, honey and bamboo.
• Community rights, such as grazing and fishing.
• Habitat rights for particularly vulnerable tribal groups.
• The right to protect, regenerate, conserve and manage any community forest resource.

Who can claim

• Forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes; and
• Other traditional forest dwellers who have lived in and depended on the forest for at least three generations, that is, 75 years, before 13 December 2005.

The land must have been occupied before 13 December 2005, and a claim for individual land cannot exceed four hectares.

Procedure for claims

1. The village assembly, the Gram Sabha, receives and verifies claims under Section 6.
2. The claims then pass through a sub-divisional committee.
3. The district committee makes the final decision.

Protection against eviction: Section 4(5)

No member of a forest-dwelling community can be evicted from forest land under his occupation until the recognition and verification procedure is complete.

Conservation role and relocation

• The Act empowers rights holders and the Gram Sabha to protect wildlife, forests and biodiversity.
• People may be moved out of critical wildlife habitats only with their free and informed consent, and after proper rehabilitation.

Resistance to the Act

In February 2019, in a case filed by wildlife groups, the Supreme Court ordered the eviction of forest dwellers whose claims had been rejected. The order could have affected lakhs of families, and within two weeks the Court put it on hold. The episode showed how fragile these rights are when claims are rejected without a proper process.

The Niyamgiri case

Wildlife Conservation

The main law is the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. The Forty Second Amendment placed the protection of wild animals and birds in the Concurrent List.

The Act works through:

1. a ban on hunting;
2. the protection of habitats;
3. controls on trade; and
4. a set of authorities, such as the Chief Wild Life Warden in each State and the National Board for Wild Life, which is chaired by the Prime Minister.

Ban on hunting (Section 9)

Section 9 prohibits the hunting of the wild animals listed in the Schedules.

The Schedules after the 2022 amendment

Since the amendment of 2022, which came into force in April 2023, the Act has four Schedules instead of six.

Schedule	Contents
Schedule One	Animals given the highest protection
Schedule Two	Other protected animals
Schedule Three	Protected plants
Schedule Four	Specimens covered by the international treaty on trade in endangered species (CITES)

Protection of habitats: protected areas

The Act creates protected areas, including sanctuaries, national parks, conservation reserves, community reserves and tiger reserves. Sanctuaries and national parks compare as follows:

Basis	Sanctuary	National park
Provision	Section 18	Section 35
Purpose and protection	Protects an area of ecological or wildlife importance	Stronger protection
Rights of people	Some rights of people may continue	No grazing is allowed

• Conservation reserves and community reserves: added by a later amendment; they protect areas owned by the government or by communities with the help of local people.
• Tiger reserves (Section 38V): managed with the National Tiger Conservation Authority.

Control on trade

The Act prohibits trade in protected wild animals and their parts, such as ivory, skins and horns.

Leading cases on protected areas

Human-Wildlife Conflict

As forests shrink and are broken up by roads, canals and farms, wild animals come into contact with people more often:

• elephants raid crops;
• leopards enter villages;
• wild boar and nilgai destroy fields.

People are injured or killed, and in anger they sometimes poison or kill the animals. Infrastructure also causes conflict.

What the law allows

The general rule is that a protected animal cannot be killed, even if it damages crops. Section 11 gives some flexibility, which differs for Schedule One and Schedule Two animals:

Basis	Schedule One animal	Schedule Two animal
Who may permit hunting	Chief Wild Life Warden	Chief Wild Life Warden or an authorised officer
Grounds	The animal has become dangerous to human life, or is so disabled or diseased as to be beyond recovery	The animal has become dangerous to human life or to property, including standing crops
Further condition	Even then, it may be killed only if it cannot be captured, tranquillised or moved	None stated
Declaration as vermin (Section 62)	Not possible	Possible

Two further rules apply:

• Self-defence: killing or wounding a wild animal in good faith, in defence of oneself or of another person, is not an offence.
• Vermin (Section 62): the Central Government may declare a wild animal, other than one in Schedule One, to be vermin for a specified area and period, so that it can be hunted there.

Other measures

Beyond these legal tools, States:

• pay compensation for deaths, injuries and crop losses;
• build barriers and early warning systems;
• protect wildlife corridors; and
• move villages out of core areas with the consent of the people.

Land Ownership and Sustainable Use

Land is a State subject under Entry 18 of the State List, so most land laws are State laws.

Kinds of ownership

1. State land: government land, forests, river beds and wasteland.
2. Private land: owned by individuals and companies.
3. Common land: used by a whole village, such as grazing grounds, ponds and cremation grounds; it is often vested in the panchayat.

In tribal areas, special laws restrict the transfer of land to non-tribals, and the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution give special protection.

Land acquisition

When the State needs private land for a public purpose, it acquires it under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. The Act:

• requires a social impact assessment before most acquisitions, to study who will be affected and how;
• requires the consent of at least 80 per cent of the affected families for acquisition for private companies, and 70 per cent for public-private partnership projects;
• limits the acquisition of irrigated multi-crop land, to protect food security; and
• requires the rehabilitation and resettlement of the affected people.

Legal tools for the sustainable use of land

• Land use planning and zoning: master plans decide where industry, housing and green areas can be.
• Coastal regulation zone notification: controls construction along the coast.
• Eco-sensitive zones around protected areas act as shock absorbers. In 2022, the Supreme Court directed a minimum eco-sensitive zone of one kilometre around protected areas; in 2023 it relaxed this direction in some situations.
• Wetlands are protected by the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017.
• Mining is regulated by the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, including plans for closing mines and restoring the land.
• Land restoration: India has pledged to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030.

Protection of village commons

Water Ownership and Water Rights

Constitutional position

• Water is in Entry 17 of the State List, subject to Entry 56 of the Union List, which lets Parliament regulate inter-State rivers.
• Disputes between States over rivers are decided by tribunals under Article 262 and the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956.

Surface water

The older law rests on two ideas:

1. Riparian rights: under the common law and the Indian Easements Act, a landowner beside a stream, called a riparian owner, has the right to receive the natural flow of the water without material change in its quantity or quality.
2. State control: irrigation laws, like the Northern India Canal and Drainage Act, 1873, declare that the government is entitled to use and control the water of rivers and streams for public purposes.

In practice, therefore, the State controls surface water.

Groundwater

Under the Easements Act, the owner of land has the right to collect and use all the water under his land that does not pass in a defined channel. The law has thus treated groundwater almost as private property attached to land. This rule has encouraged over-extraction, because a landowner with a deep borewell can drain the water on which his neighbours also depend.

Judicial rethinking

Courts have begun to question the private property rule, relying on the public trust doctrine and the right to life:

• The right to safe drinking water is part of Article 21 (the Nayudu case).
• In the Cauvery dispute, the Supreme Court said in 2018 that drinking water must be placed at the highest pedestal.

Basis	Groundwater as private property	Groundwater as a common resource
Source	Easements Act rule; Division Bench in the Plachimada case (2005)	Public trust doctrine and right to life; single judge in the Plachimada case (2003)
Nature of groundwater	Attached to the land	National wealth belonging to the whole society, held by the State in public trust
Extent of use	Landowner may draw a reasonable amount from his own land	Cannot be extracted in excessive quantities

Conserving Groundwater

India is the largest user of groundwater in the world, and in many districts the water table is falling fast. There is no single central statute regulating groundwater. The main measures are:

• Central Ground Water Authority: set up in 1997 under Section 3(3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, following orders of the Supreme Court, to regulate extraction.
• Guidelines of 2020: industries, infrastructure projects and mining projects must obtain a no objection certificate before drawing groundwater, while drinking and domestic use and agriculture are generally exempt.
• State laws: several States have their own groundwater laws.
• Rainwater harvesting: many cities make it compulsory for new buildings.
• Community programmes: schemes such as the Atal Bhujal Yojana encourage villages to manage their own groundwater.

Biodiversity

Meaning

Biological diversity means the variety of life on earth.

India's biodiversity

• India is one of the seventeen megadiverse countries of the world.
• It includes parts of four global biodiversity hotspots:
  1. the Himalaya;
  2. the Indo-Burma region;
  3. the Western Ghats with Sri Lanka; and
  4. Sundaland, which includes the Nicobar Islands.

Why protect biodiversity

• It gives us food, medicine, clean water and a stable climate.
• Every species has its own value, as the ecocentric view reminds us.

Threats

• Habitat loss;
• overexploitation;
• pollution;
• invasive species;
• climate change; and
• biopiracy, a threat of a different kind.

India fought famous battles against foreign patents on the healing use of turmeric and on neem, and won. To prevent such patents, India built a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which lets patent offices check whether a claimed invention is already known.

International framework

• Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992: has three objectives:
  1. the conservation of biological diversity;
  2. the sustainable use of its components; and
  3. the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.
  It recognises the sovereign rights of States over their biological resources.
• Nagoya Protocol, 2010 (in force in 2014): sets out detailed rules on access and benefit sharing.
• Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, 2022: sets targets, such as conserving 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030.

The Biological Diversity Act, 2002

India implemented the Convention through the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, which creates a three-tier structure:

Level	Body	Note
National	National Biodiversity Authority	Based in Chennai
State	State Biodiversity Board	One in each State
Local	Biodiversity Management Committee	Every local body must set one up; it prepares a People's Biodiversity Register recording local biological resources and the knowledge about them

Regulation of access: two tracks

Basis	Foreign track	Indian track (lighter)
Who	Foreigners and foreign-controlled companies	Indian citizens and Indian companies
Authority	National Biodiversity Authority	State Biodiversity Board
Requirement	Prior approval to obtain biological resources occurring in India, or the knowledge associated with them	Prior intimation before obtaining biological resources for commercial use (Section 7)

• A person who seeks a patent or other intellectual property right based on such resources also needs the approval of the National Biodiversity Authority.
• Exempt: local people and communities of the area, including growers and cultivators, and the vaids and hakims who practise indigenous medicine.

Benefit sharing (Section 21)

When the National Biodiversity Authority grants approval (the foreign track and the intellectual property route), it fixes the terms of benefit sharing under Section 21. Benefits may take the form of:

• money;
• royalties;
• joint ownership of patents;
• transfer of technology; or
• payments to the local communities who conserved the resource.

The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023

The amendment was meant to ease compliance for domestic industry, especially the Indian systems of medicine. It:

• exempted codified traditional knowledge, cultivated medicinal plants and their products, and registered practitioners of the AYUSH systems from the duty of prior intimation;
• replaced most criminal offences under the Act with money penalties; and
• introduced the idea of a foreign-controlled company.

Critics say that these exemptions may reduce the benefits reaching local communities, which was exactly the concern in the Divya Pharmacy case.

Access and Benefit Sharing

1. Access: a user must obtain permission, called prior informed consent, from the providing country and, where relevant, the community, before taking biological resources or traditional knowledge.
2. Benefit sharing: the benefits of using those resources, whether money, technology or knowledge, must be shared fairly with the providers, on mutually agreed terms.

Rationale: the communities that conserved a plant for centuries, and discovered its uses, deserve a share when a company profits from it.

Access and benefit sharing thus turns the knowledge of the poor into a source of income for them, instead of a free gift to industry.

Forests, wildlife, land, water and biodiversity are all affected by one more force that knows no boundaries: climate change.

Meaning of climate change

Weather and climate

Weather is what happens today, such as a hot afternoon or a sudden storm. Climate is the average pattern of weather over a long period, usually 30 years or more. Climate change means a long-term change in that pattern.

The greenhouse effect

The sun warms the earth, and gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide trap part of that heat, like the glass of a greenhouse. This natural greenhouse effect keeps the earth warm enough for life. Since the industrial revolution, human beings have added huge amounts of these gases by burning coal, oil and gas, by cutting forests, and through farming and industry. The extra gases trap extra heat, and the earth warms.

Definition under the UNFCCC

The definition has two parts: the change must be linked to human activity, and it must be in addition to natural variation.

Scientific findings and the impact on India

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientific body of the United Nations on this subject, has concluded that it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, the ocean and the land. The world is already more than 1 degree Celsius warmer than before the industrial age. For India, this means more intense heatwaves, erratic monsoons, floods and droughts, melting Himalayan glaciers, stronger cyclones, and a rising sea along a long coastline.

Mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage

The law responds to climate change in three ways: mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage.

Mitigation and adaptation

Basis	Mitigation	Adaptation
Meaning	Reducing the causes of climate change, either by cutting greenhouse gas emissions or by increasing the sinks that absorb them, such as forests	Adjusting to the actual or expected effects of climate change, so as to reduce the harm
Examples	Switching from coal to solar power; making buildings energy efficient; planting forests	Heat action plans that open cooling centres in summer; crops that survive drought; stronger embankments against floods; early warnings of cyclones
Simple image	Turns down the tap	Mops the floor

The two can support each other, or conflict, so climate law must balance different environmental goals.

Loss and damage

Loss and damage means the harm caused by climate change that cannot be prevented by mitigation or managed by adaptation. It deals with what can no longer be avoided.

• Economic losses: destroyed homes and crops.
• Non-economic losses: lives, culture, and even whole territories lost to the sea.
• It may come from sudden events like cyclones, or slow processes like the rise of the sea.

Poor countries, which contributed least to the problem, suffer the most.

Development of the law

• 2013: the Warsaw climate conference set up an international mechanism on loss and damage.
• Article 8 of the Paris Agreement recognises the importance of averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage. But the decision adopting the Agreement says that Article 8 does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation.
• 2022: after years of pressure from developing countries, the climate conference agreed to set up a fund.
• 2023: it was made operational as the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage.

The international framework

Instrument	Key features
Framework Convention, 1992	Ultimate objective: stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. Rests on common but differentiated responsibilities.
Kyoto Protocol, 1997	Binding targets only for developed countries.
Paris Agreement, 2015	Changed the method: every country sets its own targets in a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and must update it every 5 years, each time with greater ambition. Goal: hold the rise in global temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees.

ICJ advisory opinion (2025)

India's climate law and policy

India has no single umbrella law on climate change, as the Supreme Court noted in the Ranjitsinh case. Climate action rests on policies, missions and several statutes.

National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008)

The central policy, released in June 2008, set up eight national missions:

1. Solar energy
2. Enhanced energy efficiency
3. Sustainable habitat
4. Water
5. Sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem
6. A Green India
7. Sustainable agriculture
8. Strategic knowledge for climate change

It asked each State to prepare a State Action Plan on Climate Change suited to its own risks; most States and Union territories have done so.

India's international commitments

Emissions intensity means the emissions for each unit of gross domestic product.

Year	Commitment
2015	Reduce the emissions intensity of the economy and expand clean energy.
2021 (Glasgow)	Net zero emissions by 2070.
2022 (updated NDC)	Reduce emissions intensity by 45 per cent from the 2005 level by 2030; about 50 per cent of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030. India crossed that 50 per cent mark in June 2025, five years early.
2026 (next NDC, up to 2035)	Cut emissions intensity by 47 per cent from the 2005 level; reach 60 per cent of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources; create a carbon sink of 3.5 to 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through forest and tree cover.

Statutes and schemes

• Energy Conservation Act, 2001 (amended in 2022): the amendment allows the Central Government to set up a carbon credit trading scheme, to require certain consumers to use a minimum share of non-fossil energy, and to extend energy conservation codes to large buildings.
• Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (notified in 2023): a compliance market for industries given emission targets, and an offset market for voluntary projects.
• Electricity Act, 2003: supports renewable energy through purchase obligations.
• Green Credit Rules, 2023, made under the Environment (Protection) Act: reward voluntary environmental actions.
• Laws on forests, energy efficiency and disaster management also serve climate goals.

Justiciability of climate plans

Policies like the National Action Plan are not statutes. They are statements of intention by the executive, in broad language. Courts are careful not to enforce the details of policy, because that is the job of the government. But courts can ask whether the government is acting arbitrarily, whether it is following its own laws, and whether it is violating fundamental rights.

Climate litigation against the State

Around the world, citizens have sued their governments for doing too little on climate change.

In India, the Ranjitsinh judgment and the Ridhima Pandey appeal are the main examples.

Climate litigation against companies

Suing a private company is harder: the emissions of one company are a small part of a global problem, and it is difficult to prove that they caused a particular harm. Theories being tested include:

• nuisance, negligence and a duty of care;
• consumer protection against misleading green claims;
• the duties of company directors; and
• disclosure rules for investors.

Position in India

In India, companies face climate duties mainly through regulation, such as environmental clearances, the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme and sustainability reporting. In 2024, the Central Consumer Protection Authority issued guidelines against greenwashing, that is, misleading claims that a product is environmentally friendly. For now, the pressure on companies in India comes more from regulators than from climate lawsuits.

Climate-induced migration and displacement

When rising seas, floods, cyclones, droughts or heat make a place unsafe, or unable to support life, people move.

Term	Meaning
Migration	A broad term for people moving, often partly by choice, like a farmer who moves to a city after repeated crop failures
Displacement	People are forced to leave, for example by a cyclone or by the erosion of their island
Planned relocation	A whole community is moved, with the help of the State, before disaster strikes

In India, the islands of the Sundarbans, parts of the coast of Odisha, and the river island of Majuli have all seen people lose land to water.

The protection gap

• Most climate-displaced people move within their own country, where they remain the responsibility of their own government.
• India is not a party to the Refugee Convention and has no specific law on climate displacement.
• The Disaster Management Act, 2005 provides for relief and for minimum standards of relief after disasters.
• Land acquisition law provides rehabilitation only when the State takes land.
• No law yet deals with the slow loss of homes to the sea.

How States are responding

• 2010: the Cancun climate conference invited countries to improve understanding and cooperation on climate-induced displacement, migration and planned relocation.
• A task force on displacement was set up under the decisions adopted with the Paris Agreement.
• 2023: Australia and Tuvalu signed a treaty offering a special pathway for the people of Tuvalu to move to Australia as the sea rises.
• India too will need a policy for those who lose their homes to the sea and the heat, based on the right to life and livelihood under Article 21.

Climate change and constitutional rights

1. Article 21 now includes a right against the adverse effects of climate change, as held in the Ranjitsinh case.
2. Article 14: climate change hits the poor, women, farmers, fisherfolk and people in coastal and hill regions far harder, and equal protection demands special care for them. This is intragenerational equity.
3. Future generations: their interests (intergenerational equity) are now argued in court by children like Ridhima Pandey.
4. Article 48A and Article 51A(g) place duties on both the State and the citizen.

Internationally, the UN General Assembly recognised in 2022 a human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and the 2025 advisory opinion linked climate duties with human rights.

Quick revision

• UNFCCC definition of climate change: linked to human activity, and in addition to natural climate variability.
• Three legal responses: mitigation (turns down the tap), adaptation (mops the floor), and loss and damage (harm that can no longer be avoided).
• Loss and damage: Warsaw mechanism (2013), Article 8 of the Paris Agreement (no basis for liability or compensation), fund agreed in 2022 and made operational in 2023.
• Paris Agreement (2015): NDCs updated every 5 years; well below 2 degrees Celsius, pursuing 1.5 degrees.
• ICJ advisory opinion (July 2025): binding obligations under the climate treaties and customary international law; failure to act can be an internationally wrongful act.
• India: no umbrella climate law; National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008) with eight missions; net zero by 2070; Energy Conservation Act amended in 2022; Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (2023).
• Justiciability: Gaurav Kumar Bansal (plans pushed, not enforced in general terms); Ridhima Pandey (NGT dismissal in 2019; appeal pending in the Supreme Court).
• Climate displacement: climate-displaced people are generally not refugees under the 1951 Convention; Ioane Teitiota recognised a possible bar on return.
• Constitutional basis: Articles 21, 14, 48A and 51A(g); intragenerational and intergenerational equity.