The last resort
With environmental problems growing by leaps and bounds and environmental governance institutions failing to meet the challenge, India's judiciary has begun to assert itself. The Supreme Court has triggered a wave of environmental consciousness in the country with its landmark judgements. Ordinary citizens now have the right to utilise the instrument of public interest litigation to play a more interventionist role in areas where the country's executive has failed to act.
Unfortunately, every new effort has its own problems. Given the poor advice the judiciary has often received from government agencies and the lawyers who filed petitions, and the inability of government agencies to deliver effective action, court orders have often proved to be ineffective. In some cases, the courts have merely put a seal of approval on the actions of citizens' pressure groups. In others, the remedies have only addressed the problems in part. But the court is learning new ways of doing things.
Untreated industrial effluents have destroyed hundreds of acres of land and also the drinking waters of villages near Patancheru, an industrial estate in Andhra Pradesh's Medak district. Although an interim order, passed by the Supreme Court on May 10, 1996, took care of drinking water availability and compensation for loss of agricultural yields, the court avoided harsh measures such as closure of the units. The state government's efforts at cleaning up the water sources also remains lacklustre. It remains to be seen whether the guilty industries will be brought to book.
The well-water in Bichhri, Rajasthan, is brownish-red in colour due to seepage of effluents from Silver Chemicals factory set up in 1987 to manufacture H-acid. In 1996, the Court ordered closure of the factory. But court intervention has not helped the villagers. Eight years later, groundwater remains polluted, legal action to ensure proper follow-up of the court order is missing, and no compensation has been offered to the victims.
In 1985, M C Mehta moved the Supreme Court seeking directions to relocate 1,200 polluting industries from Delhi. In 1996, the Court ordered relocation or closure of many industries and compensation to the employees. Two years later, almost 50,000 workers are still awaiting compensation. And where it has been paid, the amount is a pittance. Further, as more than 60 per cent of employees were casual workers, the question of compensation needs to be dealt with differently. The relocation, in effect, has turned out to be a bonanza for some industrialists, who were allowed to develop a part of the vacated land commercially.
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