Constitution and environmental jurisprudence

The first principle

A clean environment is a shared good that no single person owns, so it is easy for each polluter to pass the cost on to everyone else. The law corrects this in two ways: it gives every person a right that the State must protect, and it places a duty on the State and the citizen to protect nature. In India the Constitution supplied the duty in 1976, and the Supreme Court supplied the right by reading the environment into the right to life, then built most of Indian environmental law case by case.

The core

What the Constitution says

• Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty). The Supreme Court has read it to include the right to a healthy environment, to pollution free air and water, and since 2024 the right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change; it is enforceable in court.
• Article 48A (Directive Principle). The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country. It is not enforceable in court, but courts use it to interpret laws and rights.
• Article 51A(g) (Fundamental Duty). Every citizen has a duty to protect and improve the natural environment, including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures.
• The Forty second Amendment (1976). It inserted Articles 48A and 51A(g), and moved forests (Entry 17A) and the protection of wild animals and birds (Entry 17B) from the State List to the Concurrent List, so that Parliament could legislate on them, as it did with the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980.
• Law making powers. Article 253 lets Parliament make laws for the whole country to carry out an international agreement, and it was used for the Air Act 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 after the Stockholm Conference of 1972; the Water Act 1974 was made under Article 252, on the request of States.
• Local government. Article 243G and the Eleventh Schedule give panchayats social forestry, minor forest produce and drinking water, and Article 243W and the Twelfth Schedule give municipalities urban forestry and environmental protection.
• Remedies. Articles 32 and 226 allow any person to approach the Supreme Court or a High Court, and public interest litigation (PIL), which relaxed the rule that only an affected person may sue, is the route by which almost every landmark environmental case reached the courts.

The principles the courts adopted

• Polluter pays. The one who pollutes bears the cost of the damage and of restoring the environment, not just a fine; it is Principle 16 of the Rio Declaration of 1992.
• Precautionary principle. Where there is a threat of serious harm, lack of full scientific certainty is no reason to delay action, and the burden of proving that an activity is safe lies on the one who proposes it (Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration).
• Public trust doctrine. Natural resources such as rivers, seashores, forests and air are held by the State as a trustee for the public, so the State cannot hand them over for private use against the public interest.
• Absolute liability. An enterprise engaged in a hazardous or inherently dangerous activity is fully liable for any harm it causes, with none of the exceptions, such as an act of God, allowed under the older rule of strict liability.
• Sustainable development. Development that meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs, in the words of the Brundtland Commission of 1987; the courts treat it as a balance, not a ban.
• Intergenerational equity. The present generation holds the environment in trust for future generations, so it cannot use it up.
• Ecocentrism. Nature has value in itself, not only for human use, so species and ecosystems may be protected for their own sake.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) Act 2010 wrote three of these into statute: under Section 20 the tribunal must apply the principles of sustainable development, precaution and polluter pays.

Dimensions

• Constitutional. By reading the environment into Article 21, the Court turned a non enforceable Directive Principle into an enforceable right, which is why most environmental cases are framed as fundamental rights cases.
• Institutional. The Court has run long cases through continuing mandamus, keeping a matter open for years and issuing fresh orders, and has appointed committees such as the Central Empowered Committee for forests, which made it an administrator as well as a judge.
• Economic. Orders closing industries or stopping projects carry real costs for workers and growth, which the courts weigh under sustainable development.
• Social justice. The poor live closest to dumps, polluted rivers and hazardous plants and are least able to move, so environmental rights are also rights of equality, a point the Court made in the climate judgment of 2024.
• International. Indian courts have read principles from the Stockholm and Rio declarations into the law of the land, as long as they do not conflict with Indian statutes.

In practice

Landmark cases (name, year, holding)

• Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra v State of Uttar Pradesh (1985): the Court closed limestone quarries in the Doon valley, the first major case in which ecological harm outweighed the economic value of mining.
• M C Mehta v Union of India, Oleum gas leak (1987): an enterprise carrying on a hazardous activity is absolutely liable for harm caused, and compensation must match its size and capacity to pay.
• Subhash Kumar v State of Bihar (1991): the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to enjoy pollution free water and air.
• Indian Council for Enviro Legal Action v Union of India (1996): chemical units at Bichhri in Rajasthan had to pay for cleaning the soil and water they poisoned, applying the polluter pays principle.
• Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v Union of India (1996): the precautionary and polluter pays principles are part of the law of the land, and sustainable development is the governing idea, in a case on tanneries polluting the Palar river in Tamil Nadu.
• T N Godavarman Thirumulpad v Union of India (1996): "forest" under the Forest (Conservation) Act means forest in its dictionary sense, whatever the ownership or record, which brought large areas under the Act; the case is still running.
• M C Mehta v Kamal Nath (1997): the public trust doctrine is part of Indian law, so the State could not lease riverbank land on the Beas to a private motel that diverted the river.
• A P Pollution Control Board v M V Nayudu (1999): under the precautionary principle the burden of proving that a project is safe lies on the project proponent.
• Orissa Mining Corporation v Ministry of Environment and Forests (2013): the gram sabhas of the Niyamgiri hills were to decide whether bauxite mining would affect their religious and cultural rights, and they rejected it.
• Centre for Environmental Law, WWF India v Union of India (2013): the Court adopted an ecocentric approach and ordered that some Asiatic lions of Gir be moved to a second home to protect the species from a single catastrophe.
• Vedanta Ltd v State of Tamil Nadu (2024): the Court upheld the closure of the Sterlite copper smelter at Thoothukudi for repeated pollution violations.
• M K Ranjitsinh v Union of India (21 March 2024): deciding how to protect the Great Indian Bustard from power lines, the Court held that Articles 14 and 21 give people a right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change.

Issues and way forward

• Judicial governance. Courts fill gaps left by weak regulators, but running forests, air or rivers through court orders for decades strains judicial capacity and blurs accountability; strong, independent regulators are the lasting answer.
• Uneven compliance. Many orders, on river cleaning or air pollution for instance, are repeated for years without results, because the agencies that must carry them out lack staff and money.
• Ex post facto clearance. On 16 May 2025 a two judge bench in Vanashakti v Union of India struck down the 2017 notification and the 2021 office memorandum that allowed environmental clearance after a project had begun; on 18 November 2025 a three judge bench recalled that judgment by a majority of two to one; and on 29 July 2026 the Court held prior clearance mandatory, upheld the 2017 notification as a narrow, one time amnesty and quashed the 2021 office memorandum. The swings show how unsettled the law on environmental impact assessment has been.
• Climate right without a climate law. The 2024 judgment recognised a right but India has no framework law on climate change, so the content of the right, and who must do what, remains for Parliament and the executive to define.
• Balancing livelihoods. Closures hit workers first, so remedies should include transition support and time bound clean up.

Common confusions

• Article 48A and Article 51A(g). Article 48A is a Directive Principle addressed to the State, while Article 51A(g) is a Fundamental Duty addressed to every citizen; neither is enforceable by itself, unlike Article 21.
• Strict and absolute liability. Strict liability, from the English case Rylands v Fletcher (1868), allows exceptions such as an act of God, while absolute liability, laid down in the Oleum gas case, allows none.
• Precautionary principle and polluter pays. Precaution acts before harm, by shifting the burden of proof to the proponent, while polluter pays acts after harm, by making the polluter pay for repair.
• Article 252 and Article 253. Article 252 lets Parliament legislate on a State subject when two or more States ask for it, as with the Water Act, while Article 253 lets it legislate to carry out an international treaty, as with the Air Act and the Environment (Protection) Act.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: Article 21, Article 48A, Article 51A(g), Forty second Amendment, Article 253, public interest litigation, continuing mandamus, polluter pays, precautionary principle, public trust doctrine, absolute liability, sustainable development, intergenerational equity, ecocentrism, right against adverse effects of climate change.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with a fact: The Forty second Amendment of 1976 placed the duty to protect the environment on both the State (Article 48A) and the citizen (Article 51A(g)), and moved forests and wildlife to the Concurrent List.
  • Introduction with a judgement: In M K Ranjitsinh v Union of India (2024), the Supreme Court held that Articles 14 and 21 include a right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change.
  • Conclusion: Indian environmental law was built largely by the Supreme Court, from absolute liability to a climate right; the task now is for Parliament and regulators to turn these principles into rules that work without a court order.
  • Conclusion: The polluter pays and precautionary principles, read with Article 21, give India the tools to balance development with the rights of present and future generations, if its institutions apply them consistently.