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environment

05 December 2019

Several law schools swept up the honours to be named the cleanest universities in the land, at least, according to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in its now annual Swachhata Ranking Awards, honouring 48 universities and colleges for being tidy, generally hygienic and having great student-toilet ratios.

27 September 2019

As some of the world (including lots of youngsters) have been protesting for action against global heating for the past week, we have taken a look at whether India’s legal profession and law schools have done much (and if they can do better).

04 July 2016

>The Union environment ministry has withdrawn its demand for a Rs 200 crore restoration fund from Adani Ports & SEZ for damage to the environment imposed during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the biggest penalty for green violations.<

12 May 2016

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rapped Haryana, Gujarat and Bihar on the drought issue and directed the Centre to convene an urgent meeting with their chief secretaries to assess the drought situations in these states.

11 March 2016

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday gave three weeks to Art of Living (AoL) to pay environmental compensation of Rs 5 crore for holding World Culture Festival on the Yamuna floodplains in Delhi, after AoL’s leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had said in TV interviews he’d rather go to jail than pay the fine.

The NGT held a hearing on Friday over implementation of its Wednesday’s order (read the order and analysis of the order here).

AoL told the tribunal that it will abide by the ruling and sought four weeks to deposit Rs 5 crore.

The tribunal said that the AoL should pay Rs 25 lakh on Friday and the balance in three weeks.

The AoL’s three-day cultural extravaganza starts on Friday.

The organisers have already spent Rs 25.63 crore on the event.

09 March 2016

In an order, which reads like admission of helplessness, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) today declined to prohibit the holding of multi-crore World Culture Festival (WCF) organized by the Art of Living Foundation on the flood plains of the river Yamuna, after two days of hectic hearing of the parties concerned.

12 January 2016

The legislature and judiciary have been mostly aligned in spirit. Judges have been some of the most sympathetic towards environmental causes in recent years, developing a young environmental jurisprudence.

12 January 2016

qabtcoksA fascinating article in the New York Times last week (6 January) profiled Rob Bilott, a lawyer at a Cincinatti-based corporate law firm, who “became DuPont's worst nightmare”…

06 October 2015

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the central and Delhi governments as to why pollution compensatory charge be not levied on the trucks and commercial vehicles entering national capital and further contributing to already alarming air pollution in the city.

19 February 2015

The Delhi high court yesterday called the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) the “Delhi Destruct Authority” while saying that the land-owning agency and other departments are not concerned about Delhi.

“You all are not concerned about Delhi. All of you should be renamed. DDA should be renamed Delhi Destruct Authority,” said a division bench of justices BD Ahmed and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva.

The court’s observation came while hearing a PIL that said there was a forest area in Tughlakabad and birds and animals were dying because of poisonous and polluted water released from illegal factories in the area.

The judges had thundered in the case earlier this month that the city’s air should be cleaned desperately by some responsible governmental authority.

The discharge has created an “artificial lake” and the polluted water “is spreading in the whole forest”, the plea filed by resident Manoj Kumar said. It said animals were dying on a large scale.

The court wanted to know which government body is responsible for looking into the issue of contaminated water and whether the water body is a natural lake or not but none of the departments could answer the court’s query.

The court also expressed unhappiness on the meeting held on Jan 29 on court’s earlier direction to chalk out remedial measures to clean the contaminated water in the Tughlakabad Ridge area. It had also asked the DDA to explore the possibility of converting the polluted artificial lake and 200 acres of surrounding land behind the Tughlaqabad Fort into a biodiversity park on the lines of the Yamuna biodiversity park.

“None if them appears to be aware as to what has to be done... All these concerned bodies don’t know who are responsible,” said the bench Wednesday as it added the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the South Delhi Municipal Committee and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee as parties in the case.

The bench issued notice to ASI, SDMC and DPCC and sought their responses by March 4. It also asked DDA to submit a map indicating the extent of the water body and its location along with layout plan of the surrounding park.

25 July 2011

Round up of the latest and most legal from around the web.

- Supreme Court: Don’t open our judgments on flimsy grounds [The Hindu]

- Deadline for Greater Noida ‘hi tech court’ with video conferencing and servers was March 2010, now slated to be done in two months [Times of India]

- “A Challenge, An Opportunity!” AZB’s Abhijit Joshi talks of motivation and his philosophy behind law firm management following his appointment as AZB CEO. [Moneycontrol.com]

- P&H student files writ v BCI against 20 year age-limit for applying to 5-year LLB courses [Indian Express]

- Supreme Court hikes 1996 chemical company pollution damages from Rs 37 crore to Rs 200 crore for failing to pay [Economic Times]

- New independent environmental regulator for granting industrial environmental clearances [Business Standard]

25 February 2011

image The Kerala government has set up a special tribunal in application of “the polluter pays principle” to enable aggrieved individuals to seek compensation and settle disputes with Coco-Cola after a state committee held the company guilty of causing “reckless” pollution and water depletion in the district of Plachimada.

01 October 2010

India’s Supreme Court has stayed the Madras High Court’s order to shut a Sterlite Industries copper smelting plant that the lower court had decided was polluting and in ‘pathetic condition’, as reported two days ago on Wednesday. The apex court judges decided to stay the Madras HC order until 18 October, reported Reuters. The shares in Sterlite rose 6 per cent in Mumbai trading.

29 September 2010

Sterlite Industries has to shut down its copper smelting plant in Tuticorin, due to the “negative impact of running of the industry at the place and in the manner it is being run” said a Madras High Court division bench.

07 May 2010

tree-hdr_by_PaulobrandaoParliament has passed the National Green Tribunal Bill (NGB), which paves the way for the setting up of four mobile 'green tribunals' to speedily adjudicate environmental disputes and resolve over 5,000 pending environmental cases.

01 February 2010

tree-hdr_by_PaulobrandaoEnvironmental law specialist and Trust Legal founding partner Sudhir Mishra has joined FoxMandal Little (FML) Delhi as a consultant to expand the firm's environmental law practice.