How Can we Nurture Nature?

Susmita Saha*

“I know people everywhere are anxious & angry. I am, too,” tweeted UN secretary-general António Guterres, while releasing the new IPCC climate report, a damning document of negative climate change impacts. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, Sixth Assessment Report) says on an ominous note that “climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater and coastal and open ocean marine ecosystems."¹

The Report also sounds the death knell for future remedies: “Some losses are already irreversible.”²

For decades, Common Cause has been making efforts to mitigate the suffering of mother nature and the wellbeing of humans. It has been discussing the concern of worsening climate scenarios with its public-spirited members even when a warming planet and catastrophic weather events were not so high on the policymakers’ agenda.

Way back in April 1990, Mr H.D. Shourie wrote in this journal: “There is no doubt that mankind has defiled this plant to a degree that it is already affecting the quality of life everywhere. No wonder that the environmental crisis is engaging the world’s attention as never before. It is necessary that we in India also wake up to the depredations that are being caused to the environment and raise people’s voices to stem the tide and to reverse it for the benefit of future generations.”

Since then, Common Cause has been making legal interventions to mitigate environmental degradation and uphold the rights of the citizens to a clean environment. This article looks at the vast cross-section of such interventions:

Char Dham Highway Project

Citizens of the country have been paying a hefty price for arbitrary construction in the Himalayan region for a long time. Experts have been consistently warning that states like Uttarakhand have lost more than 50,000 hectares of forest cover, leading to micro climatic changes in the region and a rise in extreme climate events. They also caution that all new infrastructure projects in these regions need to be climate proofed.³

Common Cause has been at the forefront of the campaign against violations of necessary environmental clearances by the proposed 900 km long Char Dham highway, which connects four important pilgrimage sites in Uttarakhand --- Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, currently being executed in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.

We have known for a long time that the region’s relatively recent and unstable, Lesser Himalayas, are more prone to frequent landslides. According to media reports, 3000 people had to be evacuated in 2003 when a massive landslide damaged at least 100 buildings. Heavy rains in 2016 killed scores of people in Pithoragarh and changed the landscape. It is surprising, therefore that in such an ecologically sensitive area, the Rs 12,000-crore project was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016, “as a tribute to those who died in the 2013 Kedarnath disaster.”⁴

Concerned about the project’s enormous cost to the environment, Common Cause filed an Original Application (OA) on July 3, 2018 at the National Green Tribunal (NGT), under Section 14, 15 and 18 of the NGT Act, 2010. On September 17, 2018 our application was tagged with the case filed by environment nonprofit Citizens for Green Doon.

Common Cause was distressed by the widening project being done without conducting the mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The requirement of EIA was bypassed by dividing, rather inexplicably, the 900 km road length into stretches measuring less than 100 km. This measure took refuge under the August 22, 2013 notification, which granted EIA exemption to national highways stretching for less than 100 km.

The Char Dham project has led to the felling of thousands of trees in ecologically sensitive areas, including the core area of Gangotri National Park, which covers the main glaciers feeding the Ganga. During the construction of the project, debris and muck were being directly dumped along the slopes into the Bhagirathi river. With the onset of monsoon, the impact of the muck disposal intensified, heightening fears of landslides and other disasters.

Common Cause petition also drew the court’s attention to the indiscriminate dumping along the slopes which were bound to result in excessive pollution in the river and an eventual alteration of its course. It sought directions, among others, on following the principles of road design in the hill areas, and the submission of a time-bound muck disposal plan.

Refusing to interfere, the Bench on September 26, 2018, disposed of the petitions and cleared the Char Dham project with requisite safeguards in view of what it described as the larger public interest and national security. However, the Tribunal noted that the structural stability of muck-dumping sites was not satisfactory and there was possibility of some caving in during excessive landslides and other natural disasters. The court constituted a High-Powered Committee (HPC) as an oversight authority, among other things.

Subsequently, the other co-petitioners challenged the NGT’S order in the Supreme Court. The Apex Court ordered a change in the composition of the HPC, and recommended the addition of representatives

from a wide range of ministries and research organisations. The previous HPC chairman, Justice U.C. Dhyani was replaced by noted environmentalist Prof. Ravi Chopra.

The more broad-based HPC was tasked with conducting ‘rapid’ EIAs and submitting a report after reviewing the ecological concerns related to the project activities. It was also mandated with suggesting ways for complying with environmental norms.

In July 2020, owing to difference of opinion, the HPC members submitted two different reports to the Apex Court. The majority group recommended the carriageway width be of 7m while the HPC Chairman Chopra and four others, while noting alleged lapses, advocated a 5.5 m carriageway. (Earlier, the Centre had said in its submission that a road with a width of 7 to 7.5m was necessary for the Army’s requirement of the movement of troops and equipment)

In December 2021, the Apex Court allowed double-lane widening of three strategic stretches of the project. In doing so, the bench, headed by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud modified the SC’s September 2020 order restricting the road width on the entire highway to 5.5 metres.

Simultaneously, the bench set up an oversight committee so that the HPC’s observations on concerns about hill-cutting, muck disposal and preservation of water resources are addressed and its suggestions on remedial measures are implemented. SC judge Justice A.K. Sikri (Retd) will head the panel.

Right to Clean Air, Adoption of Electric Vehicles

If you are a Delhi resident, you are no stranger to burning eyes, itching throat and breathing difficulties. Not surprisingly, New Delhi is the world’s most polluted Capital for the fourth straight year in 2022, according to a report by IQAir, a Swiss group measuring air quality levels based on the concentration of PM2.5 (minute particulate matter which can enter the lungs and the bloodstream). The story is not very different in many other Indian cities.

This global environmental health threat is compounded by exhaust fumes of vehicular traffic. Obviously, electric vehicles (EVs) help a great deal in improving the overall air quality and lowering carbon emissions.

However, the govt’s initiatives for EV adoption have not had the desired impact. It launched the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme for a two-year period in 2015, and extended it till September 2018. It focussed on technology development, demand creation, pilot projects and charging infrastructure. Under phase II of FAME, the govt wished to extend financial support for three years, zeroing on the deployment of electric buses, along with other EVs.

While NITI Aayog has been working towards the implementation of an electric and hybrid transportation future in India, other stakeholders, including, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Finance Ministry and Goods & Services Tax Council have also been roped in to make the overall process of implementation smoother.

However, the impact of all these policies is hardly visible on the ground, largely because of a lack of proper implementation.

Therefore, Common Cause, jointly with Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and Sitaram Jindal Foundation, filed a PIL, demanding the implementation of the FAME scheme and NITI Aayog’s recommendations. It also prayed for the adoption of internationally recognised best practices for EV usage.

The petition brought to the Court’s attention the government’s release of the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan, 2020 in 2012, in which several recommendations were made for the adoption of EVs, switching of government fleets and public transportation to EVs, provision of subsidies to consumers for purchase of EVs as well as tax and policy incentives. It also recommended provisions for charging points in apartment buildings, parking lots, government offices, malls etc.

On March 5, 2019, taking note of the contentions of the petitioners, the Court ordered the govt to apprise it of the status of implementation of the FAME-India scheme.

Subsequently, the Court noted that the issue of EV use was inextricably linked to other allied matters on air pollution pending before it, including the serious problem of vehicular pollution. This impacted not only the NCR region, but the entire country. The Court considered it appropriate that all such pending issues be considered simultaneously and with the assistance of an authority empowered to take decisions.

The matter is still pending in the court.

Petition on Illegal Mining in Odisha

In the quest for rapid economic growth, mining has been deemed an arsenal across the globe and India is no exception. But the price of mining on the environment can be very high and unregulated mining can lead to air and drinking water pollution, destruction of wildlife and forests, besides adversely impacting human health.

Illegal mining merely adds to the horrors of the existing damage. In the aftermath of public outcry over large-scale mining scandals across India, Justice MB Shah Commission of Inquiry for illegal mining of iron ore and manganese was set up in November 2010. The Commission’s first report on Odisha, two volumes of which were accessed by the media, documented the reckless plunder of the nation’s mineral wealth, flagrant violation of the laws relating to mining and environment protection besides the violation of the fundamental rights of the local populations.

In order to force the hands of the Centre, Common Cause filed a public interest petition before the Supreme Court, seeking a detailed enquiry into illegal mining in Odisha and termination of the leases of the mining companies involved in the scam.

The Supreme Court gave its judgment on August 2, 2017. The landmark judgment imposed a hundred per cent penalty on mining companies indulging in illegal mining on account of lack of forest and environment clearances, mining outside lease/permitted area and for mining in excess of what has been allowed.

The bench headed by Justice Madan Lokur directed that an Expert Committee be constituted and presided over by a retired judge for identifying the lapses that have occurred over the years that have enabled rampant illegal and unlawful mining in Odisha and to recommend preventive measures not only to the state of Odisha but generally to all other states where large-scale mining is undertaken. The Union of India was directed to have, within a timeframe, a fresh look at the National Mineral Policy, 2008, which is almost a decade old, particularly with regard to conservation and mineral development.