What is the Cost of Environmental Breaches? A Look at the Evolving Jurisprudence of Environmental Compensation

The term ‘compensation’ has been legally defined by the Hon’ble Supreme Court to be a return for loss or damage sustained. The Court expressly states that compensation must always be just, and not based on a whim or arbitrary.[1]

Environmental compensation refers to payment of monetary reparation by industries, imposed by authorities and judicial bodies for violating environmental rules and regulations. The imposition of environmental compensation on industry finds its basis in the key environmental law principle of ‘Polluter Pays.’ The Polluter Pays Principle, simply put, makes the offending industry responsible for the damage caused to the environment and to human health.[2] In the 1990s, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India began relying heavily on this principle to order industries to pay environmental compensation for breach of environmental regulations. [3]Continue Reading What is the Cost of Environmental Breaches? A Look at the Evolving Jurisprudence of Environmental Compensation

National Green Tribunanal Act and Real Estate

The first part of this two-part blog discussed the facts that led to the filing of appeals before the Supreme Court challenging the NGT’s judgment dated May 4, 2016 and certain key issues discussed by the Supreme Court in its Judgment disposing of these appeals. In this piece, the second part of the two-part blog, we discuss other significant issues that have been dealt with in the Judgment and analyse the findings to deduce the reasoning employed by the Supreme Court in reaching its decision.
Continue Reading Supreme Court’s Diktat on Powers of the NGT: Can Developers Finally Rest Easy? – Part 2

Supreme Court’s Diktat on Powers of the NGT: Can Developers Finally Rest Easy?

Introduction

The Hon’ble National Green Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi (NGT), vide the judgment dated May 4, 2016 in the Original Application No. 222 of 2014 (Original Application), passed certain orders, which had wide scale impact on the real estate developers in the city of Bengaluru. The NGT directed that the buffer zones maintained around lakes and rajakaluves (drains) were to be increased substantially more than provided under the zoning regulations in the Revised Master Plan 2015 (RMP 2015). The RMP 2015 provided for buffer zones of 30 meters from the centre of the lake, for primary rajakaluves it was 50 meters from the centre of the rajakaluve, for secondary rajakaluves, it was fixed at 25 meters and for tertiary rajakaluve it was 15 meters. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India (Supreme Court) has recently passed a judgment in Civil Appeal No. 5016 of 2016 and other connected appeals on March 5, 2019 (Judgment). These appeals were filed challenging the NGT’s judgment dated May 4, 2016.

In this first part of a two-part blog, we discuss the facts that led to filing of the present appeals before the Supreme Court and a couple of key issues discussed in the Judgment.
Continue Reading Supreme Court’s Diktat on Powers of the NGT: Can Developers Finally Rest Easy? – Part 1