case laws - Shobana Ramasubramnyam v. Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority Bomaby Dyieng Co. Ltd. v. Bombay Kisan Bhagwan Gawali v. State of Maharashtra Consumer Education and Research Center v. Union of India M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath, Saghir Ahmad J Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board vs. C. Kenchappa

2. Environmental Jurisprudence In
India
Pratyush Singh

3. Table of cases
• Shobana Ramasubramnyam v. Chennai
Metropolitan Development Authority
• Bomaby Dyieng Co. Ltd. v. Bombay
• Kisan Bhagwan Gawali v. State of Maharashtra
• Consumer Education and Research Center v.
Union of India
• M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath, Saghir Ahmad J
• Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board
vs. C. Kenchappa

4. INTRODUCTION
• The development of Indian Jurisprudence may seems
similar to what we see in other common law countries.
Yet a nigher study reveals that India has been
developing a form of environmental jurisprudence
which is different from other common law systems. In
1980s and early 1990s there were many significant
changes has been made and specific laws were made
to control the environmental pollution. Substantial
provisions were also incorporated into the constitution
for the protection of environment.

5. The Indian constitution and
Environmental Protection
• India is one of the signatories of the Stockholm
Declaration which in the known as the Magna
Carta on Human Environment. Therefore, to fulfill
it’s promise made at the Stockholm Conference,
the Indian Parliament passed the 42nd
amendment to the constitution in 1976 and
incorporated specially two articles relating to
protection and improvement of the environment.
Thus, India became the first country in the world
to have provisions on the environment in the
constitution.

6. Constitutional Obligations
The State's responsibility with regard to
environmental protection has been laid down
under Article 48-A of our Constitution, which
reads as follows: "The State shall Endeavour to
protect and improve the environment and to
safeguard the forests and wildlife of the
country".

7. Environmental protection is a fundamental duty
of every citizen of this country under Article 51-
A(g) of our Constitution which reads as follows:
"It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to
protect and improve the natural environment
including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to
have compassion for living creatures."

8. • Article 48-A of the Constitution comes under
Directive Principles of State Policy and Article
51 A(g) of the Constitution comes under
Fundamental Duties.

9. • List III(Concurrent list) of schedule VII also
provides power to the Indian Parliament on
various aspects related to the environment.
This includes subjects like forests, protection
of wild life, mines, minerals development,
population control and family planning and
factories. Parliament has passed various laws
on these subjects. Example- Factories act
1948, the industries act 1951 & others.

10. • The basic scope and nature of the state
responsibility for the protection of natural
resources were discussed by the Supreme
court in Intellectuals Forum, Tirupati v, state of
A.P. In this case the court held that The
responsibility of state to protect the
environment is now a well accepted notion in
all countries, This responsibility is clearly the
united nations conference on human
environment, Stockholm, 1972.

11. • Chapter III dealing with fundamental rights
(Article 12-35) does not have any direct
bearing on environmental degradation or eco-
imbalances, and has not even referred to
these words at all. Nut the judicial
pronouncements of the Indian Supreme court
and state high courts have significantly
contributed in giving a newer and finer
perspective to environment protection in the
form of fundamental rights.

12. • The Madras High Court has rightly pointed out
in Shobana Ramasubramnyam v. Chennai
Metropolitan Development Authority case
that today’s emerging jurisprudence,
environmental rights, which encompass a
group of collective rights, are described as
“third generation rights”. The first generation
rights are political rights, while the second
generation rights social & economical.

13. • In the case of Bomaby Dyieng Co. Ltd. v. Bombay
Environmental Action Group the constitutional scheme to
protect and preserve the environment has been provided
under Articles 21, 48-A and 51-A(g) are under the provision
of constitutional policy of sustainable development which
must be implemented. It is also stated that Articles 14, 21
,and 48-a of the Indian constitution must be applied both in
relation to an executive as also in relation to a legislation.
Judicial review of the executive and legislation can be
made, may be on different principles. Ecological principles
are relevant consideration in continuing town planning
statutes.
• Right to equality and environment

14. • The Indian constitution guarantees that “right
to equality” to all persons without any
discrimination. This indicates that any action
“state” relating to environment must not
infringe upon the right to equality.

15. • In Kisan Bhagwan Gawali v. State of
Maharashtra, the exclusion of a particular
class of grazers from consideration and
inclusion of some on the ground that the
excluded class was indulging in illegal grazing
is violative of article 14 and invalid.

16. • The Gujurat High court declared that
imposition of restriction on the trade and
operation of melting gold and silver
ornaments by running furnaces and thus
causing nuisance is no violative of article 14.

17. • In the case of Consumer Education and
Research Center v. Union of India it has aptly
been observed that “concept of social justice
and equality are complementary to each other
and practical contents of right to life.
• Right to life and right to clean, healthy
environment

18. • Article 21 of the Indian constitution, though it
guarantees right to life and personal liberty, does
not directly confer right to clean , unpolluted and
healthy environment. But the various judicial
pronouncements on the occasions have
expanded the right to life and personal liberty
various occasions have expanded the right to life
and personal liberty to include the right by
recognizing various “unarticulated liberties” as
recognized implicitly by article 21.

19. • In M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath, Saghir Ahmad J
explained: in orde to afford protection to life,
in order to protect environment an d in order
to protect ‘air, water and soil’ from pollution,
this court through it’s various judgments has
given effect to the right available, to the
citizens and other persons alike, under Article
21 of the constituon.

20. • It was clarified by the Supreme Court that any
disturbance of the basic environment
elements namely air, water and soil which are
necessary for life within the meaning of Article
21 of the constitution.

21. Sustainable Development
• The principle of ‘sustainable development' came to be
recognized in this declaration which says that there
must be a balance between development and ecology.
“Economic development without environmental
considerations can cause serious environmental
damage affecting the quality of life of the population,
both present and future.” Therefore, there is an urgent
need to maintain a balance between the demands of
development and the levels of environmental
protection in order to ensure sustainable development.
Since pollution is the major cause of environmental
degradation and of imbalance, so, pollution control will
be of greater significance for sustainable development.

22. • In Karnataka Industrial Areas Development
Board vs. C. Kenchappa and others in
consonance with the principle of 'Sustainable
Development', a serious endeavor has been
made in the impugned judgment to strike a
golden balance between the industrial
development and ecological preservation.

23. Conclusion
• Ancient philosophies of law in India, as far as they seem relevant to
a discussion of environmental law in India today, show how in India,
from very early times, the regulation of human conduct included
implicit concern for nature or the times, the regulation of human
conduct included implicit concern for nature or the environment.
The Indian way of life envisage the intimate interlinking of all
microcosmic as well as macrocosmic concerns in every aspect of
human existence. This kind of systematic universal view provides
basic conceptual elements which are inherently relevant for
ecological discussions and environmental law. For various reasons,
such conceptual elements have implicitly, rather than explicitly,
been relied upon as the legal postulates of current Indian
environmental jurisprudence. There is now a rapidly growing
Jurisprudence on Indian traditions and philosophies relating to the
environment.