Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant on Saturday said the challenge before courts is no longer choosing between conservation and development, but harmonising the two, as he traced India’s environmental jurisprudence from civilisational ethos to constitutional mandate.
Addressing the inaugural session of the National Green Tribunal International Conference on “The Future of Environment and Climate Dynamics” at Vigyan Bhawan with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in attendance, the CJI said the gathering of jurists, scientists and policy architects from nearly 30 nations underlined the global urgency of climate justice.
Recalling India’s heritage, the CJI said, “From the dawn of civilisation, India has held eternal reverence for Mother Nature.” This respect, he noted, found echo in the Constitution.
“The Constitution of India is therefore not a mere political charter; it is a moral covenant with past, present and future generations,” he said, pointing to Article 48A which directs the State to protect the environment and Article 51A which calls upon citizens to “guard the natural world like a sacred flame.”
“Yet, the words of a Constitution are but seeds. They need the nurturing waters of judicial wisdom to sprout into life,” the CJI observed.
He said the Supreme Court “has stood tall as the banyan tree of environmental justice, with roots deep in our civilisational ethos and branches sheltering the rights of unseen generations”.
Tracing the court’s journey, he said the Court has championed the idea that progress without preservation is but a mirage that vanishes in the desert of ecological ruin.
Its rulings, he said, underscore that “safeguarding nature is not an act of altruism but of self preservation, an investment in the very continuity of life”. Referring to the 1980 Ratlam Municipality case, he recalled how the Court held that “a citizen’s right to fundamental sanitation could not be subordinate to a municipality’s financial limitations,” thereby refusing to allow administrative convenience to impede a healthy environment.
Later doctrines like Public Trust, Precautionary Principle and Polluter Pays Principle ensured that “development was neither foreclosed altogether, nor permitted without scrutiny, but was instead made answerable to the very people and land it stood to affect”.
On the present balance, the CJI highlighted the recent idea of ‘eco-centric proportionality’, noting that “the question before our Courts is no longer conservation versus development, but rather, how the two can be harmonised and sustained together.”Looking ahead, he warned that climate adjudication must account for cumulative harm.
“A river does not experience pollution according to administrative boundaries,” he said.
Citing global practices from Nepal, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Brazil, Chile and the US, he said, “comparative environmental jurisprudence should not become an exercise in transplantation. It should become an exercise in dialogue”.
“The environment is not an inert backdrop to human ambition, but a living, breathing protagonist in the story of our shared well-being,” he said.
The CJI concluded his address, saying, “Our courts 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.”
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