PTI
New Delhi
The question before Indian courts is no longer conservation versus development but how the two can be harmonised and sustained together, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said on Saturday and described the apex court as the “banyan tree” of environmental justice.
Tracing four decades of the Supreme Court’s environmental jurisprudence, the CJI said there was no single constitutional route to environmental protection and cautioned against copy-paste decisions.
Recently, he said, the apex court has articulated the idea of “eco-centric proportionality”, postulating that environmental protection must be rigorous yet intelligent enough to engage with the world as it exists.
“This notion has advanced a paradigm shift by permitting development solely in conjunction with enforceable conditions, expert oversight, restoration, compensatory afforestation and accountability,” the CJI said.
The CJI was addressing the inaugural session of a two-day international conference on the topic ‘The Future of Environment and Climate Dynamics’ organised by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) at the Vigyan Bhavan here. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the NGT mobile application at the event.
“At present, the question before our courts is no longer conservation versus development, but
rather how the two can be harmonised and sustained together,” the CJI said He said an important development is the shift of the movement.
He said an important development is the shift of the movement from environmental rights towards climate-related rights.
He said, “The recent Indian jurisprudence on climate has brought this question into sharper constitutional focus by recognising that the adverse effects of climate change can implicate fundamental rights of equality, livelihood, health and the conditions necessary for the meaningful enjoyment of these rights.”
He said the second shift is from examining isolated environmental injury towards understanding cumulative ecological harm.
“A river does not experience pollution according to administrative boundaries. A forest does not understand the distinction between one project and another. The atmosphere does not recognise national frontiers; climate adjudication must therefore look beyond the immediate proposal and examine the larger ecological system of which that project forms a part,” the CJI said.
He said the challenges immediately ahead will be more demanding, and the energy transition will require new infrastructure, new technologies and new patterns of land and resources use.
Citing global comparative practices regarding green issues, he cited approaches in Nepal, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, the United States and Australia, saying there was no single constitutional route to environmental protection.
Comparative environmental jurisprudence, he said, should not become an exercise in transplantation but rather a global dialogue through enlightened decisions across courts, the CJI said.
“Courts around the world have endeavoured to highlight that the environment is not an inert backdrop to human ambition, but a living, breathing protagonist in the story of our shared well-being; each judgment pronounced is a drop that joins the larger stream of global environmental stewardship,” he said.
“But then the tide of justice cannot flow in isolation. It draws strength from the tributaries of collective will, scientific wisdom and international cooperation. Our course must become the bridge between the sagacity of our ancestors and the aspirations of our descendants, ensuring that the river of progress does not run red with the silt of destruction through the rocky terrains of inaction and indifference,” the CJI said.
