Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has called upon judiciaries across BRICS nations to assume a more consequential role in ecological governance, stressing that development must remain within the limits of nature’s capacity to sustain it.
Addressing the fourth session of the BRICS+ Chief Justices’ Forum, hosted by the Supreme Court of India, CJI Kant said judicial institutions must serve as a “moral compass” in reconciling the imperatives of economic growth with environmental sustainability.
He emphasised that environmental adjudication carries consequences extending far beyond the immediate parties before a court, as decisions concerning forests, rivers, wildlife and natural resources ultimately shape the conditions inherited by future generations.
“The rivers we protect today will sing their gratitude to generations to come; the forests we shield will stand as living testaments to our foresight,” the CJI said.
Justice Kant underscored that judicial leadership in environmental matters cannot be confined to a mechanical interpretation of statutory provisions. According to him, courts have a larger constitutional and institutional responsibility to ensure that legal frameworks protect not merely present interests but also those who are yet to inherit the planet.
“Our role is to ensure that the law serves not only the present but acts as a sentinel for the unborn and the unseen,” he said.
Drawing attention to the shared ecological wealth of BRICS nations, including forests, minerals, freshwater reserves and fertile soil, the CJI cautioned that natural resources cannot be treated as inexhaustible assets. Their ability to sustain human activity, he observed, is intrinsically linked to respecting ecological boundaries.
He illustrated the point through the example of rivers, observing that a river sustains agriculture only while it remains within its natural limits. Once those limits are breached, the same resource capable of sustaining communities can become a source of devastation.
Against this backdrop, Justice Kant placed the concept of “carrying capacity” at the heart of contemporary environmental jurisprudence. He described it as the maximum burden that an ecosystem such as a forest, river basin or aquifer can withstand before its resilience begins to collapse.
For courts exercising environmental jurisdiction, he suggested, the fundamental inquiry should therefore be whether proposed development remains within the ecological threshold of the natural system concerned.
Tracing India’s constitutional and judicial evolution in environmental protection, the CJI referred to Article 48A, introduced through the 42nd Constitutional Amendment in 1976, which casts a duty upon the State to protect and improve the environment and safeguard forests and wildlife. He also referred to Article 51A(g), which imposes a corresponding fundamental duty upon citizens to protect the natural environment.
Justice Kant highlighted the Supreme Court’s expanding environmental jurisprudence, including the Municipal Council, Ratlam v. Vardhichand ruling, in which the Court refused to permit municipal convenience to override public health and environmental obligations. He also referred to Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar, where the right to a pollution-free environment was read into the ambit of Article 21’s guarantee of life and personal liberty.
The CJI further recalled the Court’s landmark intervention in Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum v. Union of India, where the Precautionary Principle and Polluter Pays Principle were recognised as essential components of Indian environmental law. In M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath, the Court reinforced the Public Trust Doctrine, holding that natural resources are held by the State in trust for the benefit of the public.
He also pointed to the evolution of institutional mechanisms for sustained environmental oversight, including the role played by expert bodies in assisting the judiciary in monitoring compliance and ecological restoration.
Referring to the Supreme Court’s intervention concerning the conservation of the Great Indian Bustard, Justice Kant noted the difficult judicial task of reconciling wildlife conservation with India’s transition towards renewable energy. The Court’s approach, he said, demonstrated the necessity of balancing competing environmental imperatives rather than treating one ecological objective as automatically superior to another.
He also referred to the recent litigation concerning the Delhi Ridge, where environmental conservation came into conflict with infrastructure requirements. The judicial approach, he noted, permitted development subject to stringent safeguards, including compensatory afforestation, independent monitoring, verification of plantation survival and accountability for unauthorised tree felling.
Justice Kant cautioned against viewing environmental protection and development as mutually exclusive propositions. At the same time, he warned that development divorced from ecological realities ultimately undermines the very foundations upon which economic and social progress rests.
“An entirely preserved forest within an undeveloped nation benefits no one. Conversely, a nation that develops without regard for the apparatus that sustains it will maim its future generations,” he said.
The CJI suggested that the BRICS judicial community could develop a common framework for exchanging environmental jurisprudence despite differences in constitutional structures, legal systems and ecological conditions.
He pointed out that each BRICS nation faces its own distinctive environmental challenges — from the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and the Aravallis in India to Siberian permafrost in Russia, mining pressures in South Africa and vulnerable river basins in China.
Against this diverse ecological backdrop, Justice Kant proposed three broad principles for judicial engagement with environmental governance: the involvement of independent domain experts before ecological boundaries are altered, fixing accountability upon public authorities responsible for environmental decisions, and recognising that economic growth can be legitimately pursued only so long as it remains ecologically sustainable.
The CJI’s intervention placed environmental adjudication within a broader conception of intergenerational justice, emphasising that courts must not merely resolve disputes over existing resources but also protect the ecological foundations upon which future generations will depend.
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