Role of the Judiciary in Environment Protection in India

With the growth of civilization, man became materialistic. His sole aim in life was to secure more and more material wealth. This gave rise to scientific invention and new technologies, which paved the way for the exploitation of nature. The rapid and uncontrolled industrialization became potential threat to the environment. The Second World War and the industrial disaster witnessed large-scale pollution and degradation of the environment of this earth. The people began to realize that if this continued, the existence of man would be at stake.

Although numerous legislative steps have been taken to give effect to the significant right of man to live in a sound environment and the corresponding duty on state and individuals to ensure environment preservation and conservation, our endeavour, in this study, is to analyze the steps taken by judiciary to forward this goal. To achieve this end, the judiciary has evolved certain principles to provide effective remedy in case of violation of constitutional and legislative mandate. Several concepts which the judiciary has evolved in order to give force to the right of man to a healthy environment would be briefly dealt with. The present paper discussed elaborately about the role of judiciary in the protection of Environment.