05 June, 2021

Conservation of nature and economic development is possible only through judicial activism in India

Like every year, this year also we will follow our tradition by taking a pledge to protect the environment, but the same question still remains serious that will we make this resolution a reality? The covid pandemic and the recent two storms have again proved that the deepening crisis on nature is becoming more and more severe day by day. By discussing environmental issues in seminars and seminars, we often assume that our responsibility has been fulfilled. Certainly the contribution of constitutional provisions and the efforts of the court is important in increasing the sensitivity towards the environment. Before going into the related provisions included in the Constitution of India, we will look here at one such idea of ​​Mahatma Gandhi which will inspire us to move forward in this direction. Gandhiji has said, 'The earth has enough resources to satisfy the needs of all human beings, but not to satisfy the greed'.

This means that nature provides sufficient amount of resources for survival and conservation of biodiversity, but if we over-exploit them for our selfishness, then on one hand it will cause environmental degradation and on the other hand it will also affect the existence of human beings and it will cause serious trouble. In this background it is necessary to understand what we should do through constitutional provisions. The first international conference on the protection of the human environment was held in Stockholm in the year 1972. After its approval by India, Article 48 (A) and Article 51 (A) were added in the year 1976 by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment, in which the responsibility of protecting the environment has been entrusted to the state and the citizens respectively. In addition, this amendment included several subjects of the State List in the Concurrent List, such as forest in entry 17(a), wild life in 17(b) and population control and family planning in 20(a).

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Dr. Deepak Miglani, Email id.:- legalbuddy@gmail.com

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