A Progressive Ruling

Fast and forward: why this case sets a trend

Sonu Jain & Jatin Gandhi

New Delhi, Chandigarh, September 23: The Supreme Court’s order today slapping a Rs 5-crore punitive fine for defacing rocks is being seen as a landmark in environmental advocacy. For, not only has the court recognised and reaffirmed the polluter-pays principle, it has also done it in record time, just over a month after taking suo motu notice of a report and pictures in The Sunday Express which first revealed the extent of the damage.

And although the case started off with rocks on the Manali-Rohtang pass, the court’s message is being heard right across the country.

Said M C Mehta, who set the trend in PILs and the environment, leading up to the setting of what was called the ‘‘green bench’’ in the Supreme Court: ‘‘It will finally deter big business houses from degrading the environment in this brutal a manner. The court through this order has made them realise that they do not have a choice and have to pay their dues to nature.’’

There have been instances where the court has fined industry or corporates but all of it happened after several rounds of hearings spread over years. For example, the Span Motels case where Kamal Nath had been asked to pay, the refineries in Calcutta and tanneries in Chennai. In each of these, the fines were in lakhs spread over number of units.

‘‘In this case, the money is also substantially more than what the Court normally orders and it will hurt both the Himachal Pradesh government and the corporates to pay up,’’ said Mehta.

The speediness with which the case was disposed was largely due to the involvement of the Central Empowered Committee which has been assisting the amicus curiae on this case from Day One.

For the committee, too, the ‘‘rape of the rock’’ was a test case since it was only on September 18 that it got statutory powers. Now it can independently issue directions on the lines of the Bhure Lal Committee in Delhi for CNG.

In this case, the committee assisted the amicus curiae by suggesting ways in their two reports on how best to compute the fine and the least damaging method to clean the mess left by the corporates.

They were set up as an authority initially in the T N Godavarman case which has become the umbrella case for all forest-related issues in the country.

The Court has referred nearly 1,000 related applications to this committee for speedy disposal. ‘‘It is shock treatment for the corporates who have been creating havoc with the environment in many cases,’’ said a member of the committee on conditions of anonymity.

‘‘It sends a signal to the developing countries that the underdeveloped world should not be taken for granted,’’ said Raj Panjwani, a lawyer in Delhi High Court.

Says S K Sharma, environmentalist and head of the Panjab University’s Energy Research Centre that specialises in eco-friendly and non-conventional resources of energy: ‘‘It’s a great step for the future of the country. A good begining that will deter people from spoiling everything under the sun with no concern for ecology. The lesson here is that even the powerful will not be spared.’’

Sharma, a doctorate in environmental engineering, however feels the corpus fund may not be enough if the damage is to be undone through the most environment friendly methods. ‘‘No solvents must be used. The methods will have to be studied practically and applied,’’ he cautions.

The decision, says O N Bhargav, former director of the Geological Survey of India and an authority on Himalayan ecology, ‘‘is bound to be a trendsetter and not just in India. American and European companies think they can do anything East of the Suez. This should be a good lesson for them.’’

When I first posted this news item I thought it was a decision that India needed, especially after seeing those rocks in the Ganges, just up river from Rishikesh, painted with adverts for Coca-Cola.

Unfortunately, from later news reports, the companies responsible have panicked, anticipating heavy fines from the Supreme Court and have sent employees to erase the adverts by any means. Many of the adverts have now been scraped and chiselled off leaving damaged rocks all over India.

What to do? Oh India!