Constitutional provisions on environment: right to environment and duty to protect it

1. The Forty-second Amendment, 1976

The Constitution as adopted said nothing directly about environment. The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, passed four years after Stockholm, made three changes:

• Article 48A (Directive Principle): “The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wild life of the country.”
• Article 51A(g) (Fundamental Duty, in the new Part IVA): it shall be the duty of every citizen of India “to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures”.
• Seventh Schedule: “forests” (entry 17A) and “protection of wild animals and birds” (entry 17B) were transferred from the State List to the Concurrent List, so that Parliament could legislate uniformly. The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 followed.

The significance (January 2026 asked for exactly this): environment became a constitutional value; the State acquired an express duty against which its laws and actions are measured; every citizen acquired a duty, which gives locus to public-spirited petitioners; and the Union acquired legislative competence over forests and wildlife.

2. Directive Principles that protect environment

• Article 47: duty to raise the level of nutrition and standard of living and to improve public health. Pollution control is a public health measure.
• Article 48: organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and preserve and improve breeds.
• Article 48A, above.
• Article 39(b): material resources of the community to be distributed to subserve the common good, the basis of treating natural resources as held for the public.

Directive Principles are not enforceable in court (Article 37), but they are fundamental in governance and courts use them to interpret statutes and to give content to fundamental rights. In Sachidananda Pandey v. State of West Bengal, 1987 INSC 42, (1987) 2 SCC 295, concerning the grant of Calcutta zoo land for a hotel, the Court said that whenever a problem of ecology is brought before it, the court is bound to bear Article 48A and Article 51A(g) in mind, and may even give directions where the State has ignored them. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, 1987 INSC 261, (1987) 4 SCC 463 (Ganga tanneries), the Court relied on Articles 48A and 51A(g) while ordering the closure of tanneries at Kanpur that had not set up primary treatment plants.

3. The fundamental duty in Article 51A(g)

Fundamental duties are not directly enforceable, but courts have used Article 51A(g) in three ways: to interpret statutes in favour of protection; to justify directions to the State to make citizens aware of their duty; and to support the standing of citizens who come to court to protect the environment.

• In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, 1991 INSC 305, (1992) 1 SCC 358, the Court directed cinema halls to show slides on environment, All India Radio and Doordarshan to broadcast programmes, and the education authorities to make environment a compulsory subject, so that citizens could discharge the duty under Article 51A(g).
• The Rajasthan High Court in L.K. Koolwal v. State of Rajasthan (1988) held that Article 51A(g) gives a citizen the right to approach the court to compel the State to perform its duty, there of sanitation in Jaipur.

4. The right to a healthy environment under Article 21

The right was built case by case.

• Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra, Dehradun v. State of U.P., 1985 INSC 49, (1985) 2 SCC 431 (the Doon valley case). On a letter complaining of limestone quarrying in the Mussoorie hills, the Court ordered the closure of quarries causing ecological damage. It was the first major environmental case under Article 32; the right to environment was assumed rather than stated.
• Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar, 1991 INSC 3, (1991) 1 SCC 598. The Court said in terms that the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to enjoyment of pollution-free water and air, and that a citizen may invoke Article 32 to remove pollution. (The petition itself was dismissed as brought for a personal grudge, not public interest.)
• Virender Gaur v. State of Haryana, 1994 INSC 550, (1995) 2 SCC 577. Land reserved as open space could not be leased for construction; environmental, ecological, air and water pollution and sanitation that affect life and health were held to be part of Article 21.
• A.P. Pollution Control Board v. Prof. M.V. Nayudu, 1999 INSC 24, (1999) 2 SCC 718, and its sequel A.P. Pollution Control Board II v. Prof. M.V. Nayudu, 2000 INSC 564, (2001) 2 SCC 62: the right to safe drinking water is part of Article 21.
• In re Noise Pollution, 2005 INSC 297, (2005) 5 SCC 733: freedom from noise pollution is part of Article 21, and the freedom of speech in Article 19(1)(a) cannot be pressed to defeat it.
• Murli S. Deora v. Union of India, 2001 INSC 551, (2001) 8 SCC 765: smoking in public places was prohibited to protect the Article 21 rights of non-smokers.

5. Climate change: M.K. Ranjitsinh (2024)

In M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India, 2024 INSC 280, decided on 21 March 2024 by a Bench of Chandrachud C.J., Pardiwala and Manoj Misra JJ., the question was the protection of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard, which dies in collisions with overhead power lines in Rajasthan and Gujarat. In 2021 the Court had ordered transmission lines in the bustard's habitat to be laid underground. The Union sought modification, pointing to India's commitments on renewable energy, since the area is also the country's best for solar power. The Court modified the blanket direction, appointed an expert committee to decide where underground lines are feasible, and held that:

• there is a right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change, which flows from Article 21 (life) and Article 14 (equality, since climate change affects the vulnerable unequally);
• Articles 48A and 51A(g), though not justiciable, indicate that the Constitution recognises the importance of the natural world; and
• conservation of a species and the shift to renewable energy must both be pursued, so the State's climate obligations are a relevant consideration in environmental decisions.

The matter has continued; a later order in December 2025 (M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India, 2025 INSC 1472) accepted the expert committee's measures as adequate.

6. Legislative competence: Articles 252 and 253

• Water is a State subject (List II, entry 17). Parliament made the Water Act, 1974 under Article 252, after two or more State legislatures passed resolutions; it applies only to States that adopt it, and amendments must be adopted in the same way.
• Article 253 lets Parliament make laws for the whole of India to implement any treaty or decision of an international conference, even on State subjects. The Air Act, 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 were made under it, citing Stockholm.
• Local bodies: the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules (Articles 243G and 243W) include social forestry, drinking water, sanitation, solid waste management and protection of the environment and ecology.

How this is examined

Every recent paper has one question here: the significance of the Forty-second Amendment (January 2026), the fundamental duty to protect the natural environment (January 2026), how the Directive Principles help (January 2026, 6 marks), the environmental dimensions of Article 21 (June 2025) and the right to a clean environment as a fundamental right (February 2025 and August 2024). For the Article 21 essay, give the chain in date order (Doon valley, Subhash Kumar, Virender Gaur, Nayudu, Noise Pollution) and end with Ranjitsinh. A critical analysis should note that the right is judge-made, that enforcement still depends on the Pollution Control Boards, and that the courts must weigh it against the right to development.