In 2024, the Supreme Court’s record on environmental cases reflected the inconsistencies in its historical jurisprudence on the subject. Some decisions broadened the constitutional imagination of environmental rights. For instance, in one case, for the first time in 75 years, the Court held that there exists not only a right to a clean and healthy environment under Article 21 but also a right against the adverse effects of climate change. Particular benches also regularly monitored the enforcement of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 (‘EPA’), pollution and deforestation issues in the national capital. A split verdict also pressed for greater transparency in environmental policies on the release of genetically modified crops. 

As challenges to an amendment of the Forest (Conservation) Act remain pending, some decisions stood apart for their empathetic consideration of forest lands. For instance, the Court directed state governments to adopt a broad definition of “forest areas.” Notably, the Court also declared sacred groves in Rajasthan as ‘deemed forests’. 

However, many decisions were laden with rhetoric and often contradicted by judgements or orders from other benches. For instance, the judgement that ruled for a new climate right also greenlit a major energy project through an endangered bird’s habitat.

Like the past years, the Court also staggered on issues where developmental projects and policies seemed to be pitted against environmental conservation, landing its feet on muddy waters.

A new right for climate litigation

In what has been labelled as a landmark decision, a Division Bench led by former Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, in M.K. Ranjitsinh v Union of India, ruled that the Constitution confers the right against the adverse effects of climate change. This right, the bench held, flows from Articles 48A (a Directive Principle of State Policy which states that the State should endeavour to protect and improve the environment), 51A(g) (a fundamental duty on citizens to protect and improve the natural environment), 21 and 14. In M.C. Mehta (1986), the Court had recognised the right to live in a healthy environment as part of Article 21. 

In Ranjitsinh, noting the “havoc caused by climate change”—air pollution, increase in vector-borne diseases and rising temperatures, the Court also articulated a right against the adverse effects of climate change. Addressing climate inequality in India, the bench highlighted that forest dwellers and indigenous communities were more disadvantaged by climate change than urban populations.

Of significant consequence is the decision’s acknowledgement of a legislative vacuum in India for a coherent, umbrella national policy on climate change. Many countries, including the European Union, have climate legislations that guide climate change litigations. Referring to climate-related disputes, such as a climate refugee case in the Supreme Court of New Zealand, the Court stated, “These cases, all instituted and decided in the past decade, indicate the type of concerns which will travel to the courts in the next few years.”

Genetically modified transparency

In 2022, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), a regulatory biotechnology body, conditionally approved the environmental field test release of Dhara Mustard Hybrid 11 (DMH-11). On 24 July 2024, in Gene Campaign v Union of India, the Court delivered a split verdict on whether the GEAC’s decision was legal and constitutional. 

Relying on the principle of inter-generational equity, Justice B.V. Nagarathna ruled against the release of the genetically modified mustard. She also pointed out that the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s approval of the GEAC’s decision was given without consulting state governments even though agriculture fell under Entry 4 of the State list. Further, health experts were not consulted by the GEAC before approving its release. Therefore, she directed that in the future, before such a release the GEAC must consult with stakeholders and ensure that it was not a Herbicide Tolerant crop, known to cause cancer. On this front, the MoEFCC will now have to publish an official report on its website claiming that DMH-11 is not carcinogenic. Justice Nagarathna also held that since it may lead to a loss of indigenous mustard widely grown in India, it violated the precautionary principle in environmental law. The Court directed the Union government to frame a national policy on GM crops for their research, cultivation, trade and commerce.

An eye on pollution and environmental monitoring 

In Ashok Kumar Sinha v Union of India, the Court directed the Union and Bihar governments to respond to concerns about the dumping of plastic waste in the Ganga. “The dumping of plastic is causing serious environment degradation and also impacting aquatic life in the river banks and the water bodies in the country,” the Court noted. The bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S.V. Bhatti also ordered the removal and stoppage of further construction of illegal encroachments around the river. 

In November 2024, air pollution in the National Capital Region worsened so seriously that the Air Quality Index of the city spiked to 1500 – ‘hazardous’, making Delhi the most polluted city in the world. A bench of Justices A.S. Oka and A.G. Masih started monitoring the matter through the continuing mandamus case M.C. Mehta (1984). The bench closely monitored the designation of Graded Response Action Plan stages in the city, while also directing schools to be shut for children from all classes during Stage IV. During the hearings, the Court also started looking into solid waste management in the city, as smoke from untreated waste emerged as a major contributor to air pollution. Twice it summoned the Chief Secretary of Delhi, threatening the NCR government with contempt for non-compliance to the Solid Waste Management Rules. The Court also sharpened the environmental impact assessment framework in states. On 12 November, in Union of India v Rajiv Suri, a bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar ruled that State Environment Impact Assessment Authorities (SEIAA) mandated under Section 3(3) of the EPA have to be established in all states where they have not been constituted within six weeks.

Fostering forests

In 1996, the Court started hearing T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v Union of India, a continuing mandamus case through which the Court has passed orders monitoring the clearing of forests or large-scale felling of trees. The Court had ruled in 1996 that the word ‘forests’, under the FCA, had to be interpreted as land recorded as ‘forest’ in government records, and as per the dictionary definition of forests. The Cambridge Dictionary, for instance, defines a forest as a “large area of land covered with trees and plants, usually larger than a wood, or the trees and plants themselves.” Such definitions allow for a liberal designation of forest areas.In Ashok Kumar Sharma, the Court directed all Union Territories and state governments to follow Godavarman’s definition of ‘forest’ while it was hearing a challenge to a 2023 amendment to the FCA. The amendment came under flak by environmentalists and experts who alleged, among other things, that it was a means to circumvent the broad definition of ‘forest’, and divert such areas for government and industrial use. The case remains pending before the Court, but in the meantime, the Court ruled that zoos and safaris, which are removed from the ambit of forest areas under Section 5 of the amendment, shall be considered “forest areas” for the time that the case remains pending. 

Throughout the year, a bench of Justices Oka and Bhuyan also monitored the illegal felling of trees in the Ridge area in North Delhi, a dense forest area in the Northern Aravalis which is also a leopard corridor. When the Delhi government cleared the Ridge illegally to construct a 10-kilometre-long road, the Court issued contempt against the Vice Chairman of the Delhi Development Authority, and other authorities for violating a previous order that had rejected the Delhi government’s request to fell/translocate 1051 trees. “If authorities are not going to perform their statutory and constitutional duties, the court has to give a clear and loud signal to all authorities that the environment cannot be damaged in this fashion,” Justice Oka thundered in June. 

On 24 October, after a bench led by former CJI Chandrachud questioned the Lieutenant Governor to come clean on his involvement in the illegal deforestation, the LG responded that he was simply unaware that the Court’s permission was to be sought first. Meanwhile, the deforested area lies as a barren land, covered in construction dust.

The Court went back and forth on nature-human relationships

Conservation efforts need to be intertwined with the culture and livelihood of local communities. This year, the Court sat over various cases where human-nature relationships were front and centre. One of the year’s most important decisions to preserve the relationship between people and forests came in the last month of the year. Justice Sandeep Mehta ruled that the Orans in Rajasthan should be notified as ‘deemed forests’ after a mapping exercise is undertaken by the Rajasthan government. ‘Deemed forests’ are those not recognised in government records. In Godavarman (1996), the Court had directed state governments to constitute expert committees and identify ‘deemed forests’. But in 28 years, only a handful of states have constituted these committees or made public the extent of such ‘deemed forests’. The Orans are sacred groves which hold immense cultural importance for the communities. The Court ruled that protecting the Orans was “imperative for upholding both ecological sustainability and cultural heritage.” The decision brought to a close a thirty-year-long struggle by the communities to protect the Orans.

But it fumbled to protect that relationship in the GIB case. Local farming communities in Rajasthan have long highlighted the need to save the GIB (which is also the state bird). Farmers in the region where the high-transmission overhead lines were installed have protested the installation of the lines owing to frequent deaths of the birds after flying into the electric wires. “Who is this development for?” one farmer, Sumer Singh asked a reporter. In Ranjitsinh, even as the Court acknowledged the plight of the farmers, the installation of the overhead lines was in the farmer’s best interest because underground transmission lines (the alternative to overhead ones) could pose safety risks to farmers due to current leakage from the joints. While it has appointed an Expert Committee to identify “measures to be adopted in the priority areas to ensure the long-term survival of the GIB”, whether that serves the best interests of the GIB and farmers is to be seen.

How much was just rhetoric?

In some instances, the Court’s words hit more as rhetoric than as honest consequentiality. For instance, in the Gene Campaign case, despite Justice Nagarathna’s forward-looking judgement on transparency in the release of DMH-11, Justice Sanjay Karol’s contrasting judgement in the split verdict permitting the field test release of DMH-11, leaves the regulatory future of genetically modified mustard uncertain. Further, even as the Court made noise about plastic pollution in Ganga, in another decision, a bench led by CJI Khanna stayed a well-reasoned order of the National Green Tribunal which had opened the doors for criminal prosecution of Uttarakhand authorities who had failed to prevent untreated sewage disposal into the Ganga river. Lastly, it also remains to be seen if Parliament will, in fact, formulate a unified climate change policy as directed by the Court in Ranjitsinh.

In key cases, development trumped environmental protection

The tug-of-war between India’s developmental aspirations and protecting its rich biodiversity has been a long-standing one. Many judgements and legislative frameworks have pushed for conservation through an anthropocentric, human development-focussed perspective. The Supreme Court faced some of these tensions in 2024.In Ranjitsinh, the core issue came down to whether the establishment of overhead transmission electricity lines from solar farms, a renewable energy project, trumped the concerns of conserving the Great Indian Bustard (GIB), a critically endangered bird with a population of less than 200. The transmission lines were being constructed through a GIB habitat in Rajasthan. The Court ruled in favour of installing the overhead electric lines. It reasoned that promoting renewable energy contributed to mitigating climate inequality, reduced disparities in energy access, and led to economic development, ruling in favour of installing the electric lines. However, environmental experts Ashish Kothari and Shristee Bajpai have argued that the Court’s emphasis on renewable energy was highly misplaced. In regions like Ladakh, large-scale renewable energy projects have led to social and environmental disturbances. Another policy paper suggests that promoting renewable energy in India’s current set-up can lead to unequal energy distribution across states. 

Unfortunately, the court pitted the right against the adverse effects of climate change (which the Court stated was upheld through renewable energy) and conservation efforts against each other Rather than viewing the GIB’s protection as foremostly important to climate change mitigation.In other cases, development priorities entirely trumped environmental concerns. In Gene Campaign, Justice Karol, while allowing the test release of DMH-11 held that a balance had to be maintained between sustainable development and development. In his view, the release of DMH-11 was in line with a “development approach of scientific temper.” Justice Karol refused to discuss whether DMH-11 was a carcinogenic crop.

On 11 January, in State of Himachal Pradesh v Yogendra Mohan Sengupta, the Court approved a development plan to urbanise Shimla by 2041 which had been stayed by the NGT multiple times. The NGT had banned the construction of buildings with more than two storeys and one attic floor in the hill city of Shimla citing environmental pressures. The NGT had also banned constructions in seventeen green belts and core areas. Experts have alleged that the new development plan ignores the fact that 90 percent of Shimla was built on risky slopes, leading to frequent accidents such as the collapse of an eight-storeyed building following heavy rains and a landslide in 2023. Activists called the judgement “unfortunate” and potentially creating “even more trouble”.