In modern India, Environmental Jurisprudence has gone a long way in acquiring a very seminal importance leaving behind the engraved British Juristic notions as out dated and insufficient. The damage caused to environment by poisonous gases and emissions, industrial effluents, urban sewage, garbage, plastic waste, chemicals, exploitation of natural resources like soil, forests, water supplemented by other equally important factors like poverty, growing population, health hazards, degeneration in quality of life have acquired alarming proportions which cry for a new environmental ethic, order and justice in Indian society. Regrettably in India, the initial phase of judicial response to the problems of environment has been of insensitivity and apathy towards environmental issues and problems.

The world ‘environment’ includes all parts of nature necessary for health and happiness of man. Nature constitutes the environment or the ecology of man. Not only the beauty but the very existence of life depends on nature. The famous hymn in the world’s oldest scripture, the Rig Veda, portrays the beauty of the morning (Ushas) and worships its glory. Our ancestors were nature worshippers because worship is a form of the greatest admiration for them in nature. This healthy approach of man to nature later suffered an eclipse with the growth of population, increasing pressure on natural resources. A truthless exploitation of nature resources created deserts, droughts and now the experiments with the atom and the entry of nuclear weapons in the space threaten even the existence of ozone and the very atmosphere without with man cannot live at all.

The India of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya - richly watered, richly fruited and richly aired with cool breath - has been witnessing a sad scenario of land becoming deforested and barren, water experiencing pollution and scarcity, the rare species of animals, birds and plants are becoming extinct and man lives are butchered at the hands of ecosiders. Attempts are made to plunder, silently and secretly, the beauty of the silent valley, Vindhya and Missouri Valleys. The greenery and public parks are converted into the commercial establishments and residential abodes. The holy rivers, Ganga and Yamuna have become unholy.

Fortunately, in the last more than one decade, the trend has changed and the judicial policing is matched by new activists stance and positive role specially after the Bhopal Gas leak tragedy. This changed attitude and concern of the judiciary for protecting environment has ensured a new kind of environmental justice and morality in the provisions of the constitution and the declaration of the judiciary declaring the environment as a basic fundamental right or human right (M.C. Mehta V. Union of India, AIR 1989 SC 1086) enforceable in the administration management of environmental justice. So, the courts in India have expounded new pirnciples invented innovative remedies and have also carved out new strategies for resolving complex environment management issues and also the matters of resource conservation. Environmental Jurisprudence frankly speaking does consists of such basic principles, fundamental postulates and values concerning a fine balance of harmony in environment by regulating, ordering, preventing and also controlling such human conduct by fixing standards of accountability which tend to disrupt, disturb, damage and destroy the ecological balance. There is no doubt, that the new approach to green philosophy is full of more eco friendly values relating to human beings, animals and plants which are the key actors in the present environmental crises. The basic idea of the protection of environment is to envisage a fine balance of co-existence between man and nature and between living and non-living. In India this mechanism reminds one of the ancient vedic philosophy which emphasizes that so long as the earth has mountains, forests, trees etc., the human beings will survive.

There are other vedic invocations which declare that the earth is our mother and we are its children. Truly speaking, it is not merely an extra version but invokes and high lights the central issue of human existence and survival for present and future generations. The concepts like “One World”, “Global family” are common features of “Common mankind”. The future generations are the concerns to be taken care of not only by the people but also by the governments to help and sustain the environment and to develop a common culture of environmental values which would inform legal, political and economic democracy of “ONE WORLD IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM”.

If I venture a discuss the Environmental Jurisprudence in Kelsenian Ground Norm pure theory, with “common future” or “one world” as the super most norm (Grund norm), the subordinate norms are like right to life, rigrk to livelihood,

right to clean environment, sustainable development and prevention of pollution, elimination of poverty etc. The Indian judiciary in the recent period has been continuously found engaged in creating the environmental jurisprudence full of values for the preservation and conservation of total environment. The backdrop of the environmental philosophy which the Indian environmental jurisprudence has nurtured is the Stock Home Conference on Human Environment, 1972. Since then, India has witnessed a series of legislative measures, administrative policy decisions, amendments of the constitution and also a new interpretation of Article 21. The judiciary has played a commendable role in ecology and environmental preservation and is also taking care of the need to have development under Articles 21, 48 A and 51 A(g) of the Constitution.

In deciding issues of environment, the Supreme Court has not hesitated in following internationally accepted measures (Vellore citizens welfare case) which are in consonance with the ancient Indian holistic ideal of environment. The Gandhian philosophy emphasizing that “Nature has provided everything for our need but not for greed”. It is a constant source of reminder for maintaining a fine balance between humanistic development and environment. The Courts during these years have come across with very complex eco problems and have also been confronted with the problem as to how to maintain non responsive and unaccountable administration and management accountability to those affected by unchecked and unbridled developmental mania. The judicial policing have viewed a new eco friendly jurisprudence which amply reflect the goal of eco justice, human dignity, human concern, human right, human health, right to live and also concern to preserve the mother earth by maintaining a very delicate and fine balance between man and nature.

Many of the Justices of Supreme Court in the recent years have very carefully expressed the cause of environmental protection by making sustainable development a legal obligation. (State of H.P. V. Ganesh Wood Products) and Constitutional mandate for governments. The initiative taken by the judiciary has introduced transparency on the issue of clearance of projects and environmental impact assessment. It is in this context that the courts have very rightly emphasized the principle of harmony and balance between the environment and its development. The Supreme Court decisions in clear terms indicated that the Central Governments and State Governments usually intend to violate the environmental standards while granting clearance of power projects and Industries etc. The Courts admitting that there can be no development without adverse effect of environment, have also stated that a balance has to be struck between two competing interests, proper utility projects could not be abandoned nor the environment can be allowed to be destroyed. The pre 1990 judicial trend clearly introduces Polluters Pay Principle (PPP) in Indian Environmental Jurisprudence thereby linking right to clean and unpolluted environment with right to live under Article 21. The Post. 1990 judicial trend gives a much better scenario of the Indian development model and environment related issues for the coming generations. The opinion of Shri Justice Jeevan Reddy in the case Bichhari (AIR 1996 SC 1446) and Shri Justice Kuldeep Singh in Tamil Nadu Tanneries case (AIR 1996 SC 2715) form the most important juristic paradigm for a clean environment free from pollution and concern for safe earth needs not only Indians but for all men of all lands. In nutshell, the judicial policing in India in relation to pollution matters and unsustainable development has been of much significant value as the principles initiated are a right step not only protecting the environment of the people, but also from all the people. Yet there is an imperative need to go for a concerted effort to make people aware of the hazards of polluting the environment. Much more needs to be done at grass root level as people still do not have alternative source of energy and have to exploit nature for their survival. The task of environmental protection is difficult and complex in a country like India, which is still to travel long to usher in the industrial regime and is yet to tackle population problem, problems of food, health and water. But every effort to deal with environmental problem have to be pin pointed and local and at the same time cooperative and total.

END NOTES:

1.K.D.Gaur, “National Policy and Law of Environment”, ed. 0. P. Sharma, INDIAN BAR REVIEW, XIII (3 &

4) 1996 pp.21-22.

2.Justice Krishna I year Vol. X, “Environmental Pollution and the Law”, 1984, pp.51-52 and 61-62.

3.The holy rivers, Ganga and Yamuna have become unholy, ibid.

4.AIR 1989 SC 1086; M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath, (1997) 1 SCC 388; M.C. Mehra v. Kama! Nath, (1999) 1

SCC 702: AIR 2000 SC 1997; M.C. Mehta v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1991) 1 SSC 283; (1996) 6 SCC 756;

M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, (1987) 1 SCC 395: AIR 1987 SC 965; ( 4 SCC 351; 6 SCC 12: AIR 1999

SC 291; (1996) 8 SCC 462; (1997) 11 SCC 312; (1998) 6 SCC 63: AIR 1998 SC 2963; (1998) 8 SCC 206;

(1998) 8 SCC 206; (1998) 9 SCC 589; (2001) 3 SCC 756; (2001) 4 SCC 577; (1997) 2 SCC 353; (1997) 2

SCC 411; (1986) 2SCC 176; (1986) 2 SCC 325; (1988) 1 SCC 471;