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The Supreme Court and environmental law
India's environmental law is in large part judge made: absolute liability, polluter pays, the precautionary principle and the public trust doctrine all reached Indian law through the Supreme Court rather than through Parliament. That legacy is now being questioned from the bench itself, by a sitting judge who says the Court hears campaigners readily but hesitates when the challenge is to a large project.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2022: which body is constituted under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
- Prelims 2018: how the National Green Tribunal differs from the Central Pollution Control Board
The doctrines the Court built
- Absolute liability came from the Oleum gas leak case, M.C. Mehta (1987).
- Polluter pays came through Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action, and the precautionary principle through Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum.
- The public trust doctrine came from the Kamal Nath case, alongside intergenerational equity.
- None of them came from Parliament: the Court built them case by case, which is the legacy in question.
What has happened
14 Aug 2026
A sitting Supreme Court judge traced the doctrines the Court built and warned that it now favours campaigners' petitions while hesitating before challenges to infrastructure.
- In his dissent in the Vanashakti review he ranked the precautionary principle above polluter pays, which only repairs harm after the event.
- His view is that a court should test whether a project complies with the norms rather than dismiss petitioners at the threshold.