VELLORE CITIZENS WELFARE

FORUM V. UNION OF INDIA

AND OTHERS

The bench comprised of three judges, namely Justice Kuldip Singh, Justice
Faizan Uddin and Justice K. Venkataswami
By:-NARMDESHWAR
2013075

THE RELEVANCE AND

PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN
THE CASE:In the Vellore Citizens case, the Indian judiciary for the first time
brought the concept of sustainable development into the ambit of
Indian Law. It propounded that some of the features of sustainable
development, like polluter pays and precautionary principle were
implicit within Customary International Law and also within the
Indian constitution.
This is the landmark judgement as it was the first time that the
Supreme Court took the concept of sustainable development into
the purview of the law and also held that the polluter pays
principle and the precautionary principle were within the ambit of
the law of the land.

TANNERIES????

BASIC FACTS:An NGO by the name of Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum filed a petition a
Public Interest Litigation (PIL) under Article 32 of the Constitution of India
which guarantees the Right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate
proceedings for the enforcements of rights conferred by the constitution.
The petition was directed against the pollution which was caused due to
discharge of enormous amounts of untreated effluents by tanneries and
other industries in the state of Tamil Nadu, which led to the main source of
potable water for consumption and irrigation, the Palar river, being polluted,
and which consequently led to non-availability of clean water.
A report which was submitted to the Supreme Court noted that 176
chemicals were found in the tannery effluents and that nearly 35,000
hectares of land around the tannery belt and especially in some 59 villages
in the districts of Vellore, Thiruvanthapur and Ranipat had been made unfit
for cultivation.
It was found that 350 out of 467 wells in the area were unfit for consumption
or irrigation. It also noted the non-compliance by the tanneries regarding the
Government order to put up Common Effluent Treatment Plants (C.E.T.Ps) for
the proper disposal of effluents.

DISCHARGE OF
UNTREATED EFFLUENTS
BY TANNERIES AND
OTHER INDUSTRIES:-

ISSUES BEFORE THE

COURT:To what extent should environmental safety be compromised for
economic development?
Has there been a violation of the Right to Wholesome
Environment, guaranteed under Article 21 of the constitution?
What is the liability of the industrialists or polluter towards the
environment and the people affected by pollution?
Are the principles such as polluter pays and precautionary
principle, which are features implicit in Sustainable Development,
within the ambit of Indian Law?

THE SALIENT POINTS OF

THE ORDER BY THE
SUPREME COURT ARE:It ordered the Central Government to set up an authority under the Environmental
Protection Act, which was to deal with the situation created by the tanneries and
other polluting industries in the state of Tamil Nadu.
This authority was to implement the precautionary principle and the polluter
pays principle, and was to identify the loss to the environment and to the
individuals/families who suffered because of the pollution, and to assess the amount
of compensation to be recovered from the polluters both for reversing the ecology
and for payment to individuals.
It directed the closure of all tanneries which failed to comply with the Government
order to set up individual or common Effluent Treatment Plants, within a given time
frame.
Highly polluting industries were henceforth not allowed to set up in the prohibited
areas.

SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
A proper definition of sustainable development
was given by the Brundtland Report, also known
as Our Common Future, which defined
sustainable development as development that
meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of the future
generations to meet their own needs. The Earth
Summit of 1992 in Rio was another important
development towards reaching an international
consensus on the issues pertaining to
sustainable development and the environment.
The Rio summit signalled the emergence of a
proper system of international environmental
law.

SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
However, there are various problems faced by developing and lessdeveloped nations such as India when challenged with sustainable
development. The challenge is whether the economic development of
such countries should be compromised for environmental protection,
and whether their development should be restricted for the common
good.
The court in Vellore Citizens held that the traditional concept that
development and ecology are contradictory to each other was no
longer accepted, it went on to say that sustainable development as
had been defined in various international conferences had been
accepted as Customary International Law, and held that the rules of
international law not contrary to municipal law shall be deemed to be
incorporated into domestic law. To support this point the court referred
to the cases Gramophone Company of India Lt v Birendra Bahadur
Pandey and Others and Jolly George Varghese and Another v Bank of
Cochin. In both these cases, it was held that the rules and
requirements of international law may be accommodated into
municipal law even without express legislative consent

THE CONCEPT OF
POLLUTER PAYS
PRINCIPLE
The Polluter Pays principle was first expounded by the
Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development
(OECD), in its recommendation for guiding principles
concerning international economic aspects of environmental
policies, where it stated that the cost of environmental
degradation should be taken into account by industries, and
that the polluter should bear the cost of carrying out measures
as stated by public authorities in order to ensure that the
environment is in a suitable state. This principle was further
expounded in the Brundtland Report.
In simple terms, the principle imposes the cost of pollution
abetment on the polluters and holds them absolutely liable for
the pollution, rather than the government. This ensures that
economic development does not come at the cost of
environmental degradation.

THE CONCEPT OF
POLLUTER PAYS
PRINCIPLE
In the Vellore Citizens Case the court noted that the polluter pays principle had been
held to be a sound principle by the Supreme Court.
in the case Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action and Others v. Union of India and Others,
[19](Bicchri case) where it was held that the polluter is absolutely liable towards any harm
caused to another due to an activity which is hazardous or inherently dangerous, and
must make good the loss caused to any person affected by this activity, irrespective of
whether that the polluter took reasonable care and precautions while engaging in the
activity.
In fact, in the Vellore Tanneries Case, the court did not just uphold the precedent set by
the Bicchri case but also interpreted this principle to include not only compensation of
victims affected by pollution, but also the cost of restoring the environmental degradation
caused by the polluter and noted that remediation of the environment is part of the
process of sustainable development. Previously, the liability of restoring the damage
caused by industrialisation was with the government, but in the light of this principle, the
Governments liability to bear the costs has been shifted to the polluter himself, along
with the liability to compensate the injured party

THE CONCEPT OF
PRECAUTIONARY
PRINCIPLE
Another important principle in the concept of sustainable
development is the precautionary principle. The
precautionary principle in environmental law originated first
in Germany in the 1970s, where the legislation noted that if
there is a high possibility of risk of harmful events occurring,
then preventive measures must be ordered. The
precautionary principle then emerged in international legal
instruments in the mid-1980s, in various conferences, etc.
The Precautionary Principle has also been recognised as a
general principle of law in many nations. For example, in an
Australian case, Leatch v. National Parks, concerning licence
to kill endangered fauna, the precautionary principle was
applied to interpret a domestic statute and this licence was
cancelled.

THE CONCEPT OF
PRECAUTIONARY
PRINCIPLE
In the Vellore Tanneries Case, the Supreme Court for the first time
introduced the principle of the precautionary principle in Indian
jurisprudence, and laid down the salient features of the precautionary
principle in Indian law.
The Court held that:
The State Government and the statutory bodies must anticipate,
prevent and attack the causes of environmental degradation,
Scientific uncertainty should not be used as a reason for postponing
measures to prevent environmental degradation, and
The Onus of proof is on the actor, to show that his actions are
environmentally benign.

APPLICATION OF THESE PRINCIPLES AS

PART OF THE LAW AND INTERPRETATION
OF THEIR USE IN THE JUDGEMENT
The court held that these principles as part of the principle of sustainable development were implicit in the
law of the land and noted that they were within the ambit of the Constitution of India, under the following:
Article 21, which guarantees the right to life and liberty,
Article 47, which says that the state has a duty to raise the standard of living and to improve public
health,
Article 48(A) which guarantees the protection and improvement of the environment, and
Article 51A(g) which imposes a duty upon every citizen to protect and improve the environment
It also noted that these principles were implicit under various statutory provisions such as the Water
(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 (the Water Act),The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution)
Act, 1981 (the Air Act) and the Environment Protection Act 1986 (the Environment Act).
Further, the court said that as these principles were accepted under Customary International Law, there
would be no difficulty accepting them under the domestic law as well.

THE EVOLUTION OF
ENVIRONMENTAL JURISPRUDENCE
IN INDIA
The court in the Vellore Tanneries case was one of the first to interpret the
principles of sustainable development and bring it into the ambit of Indian law.
Hence, it set a crucially important precedent for environmental jurisprudence in
India.
The concept of sustainable development has evolved considerably in Indian
jurisprudence, and environmental protection has been integrated in the Indian
legislature and Indian environmental jurisprudence, since the Vellore Tanneries
case.
The principles of polluter pays and precautionary principle as expounded in
Vellore Tanneries have widely been accepted as part of Indian law, and have
been interpreted by the court in different ways to further the cause of
environmental protection. The following are some of the cases in which the
precedent set by the court in Vellore Citizens has been relied upon

PRECEDENT SET BY THE

VELLORE TANNERIES
CASE
M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath and ors.
In the above judgement, the petition was filed, wherein the legality of construction work by a Motel Chain (Span Motels) was
questioned. In this case, the bench applied the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle as expounded by the
court in the Vellore Tanneries case, and ordered the guilty party to pay damages and fines for the restoration of
environmental damage. The court also noted that The aesthetic use and the pristine glory of the natural resources, the
environment and the ecosystems of our country cannot be permitted to be eroded for private, commercial or any other use.
A.P. Pollution Control Board v. Prof. M.V. Nayadu (Retd.) and ors.
The court in this case relied upon the precautionary principle, and clarified the rather ambiguous definition from the Vellore
Tanneries Case, and referred to scientific uncertainty as the basis for the precautionary principle.
Bombay Cotton Mills Case
In this case, the court relied on the principle of sustainable development as mentioned in Vellore Tanneries case and held that
a balance should be struck between the ecology and development, in view of public interest.
Narmada Bachao Andolan v. Union of India and Ors.
In the above judgement, it was held that the construction of a dam on the Narmada River would not have dire environmental
consequences, and hence the precautionary principle in this case would not apply.
Hence, we can see that the concept of sustainable development has considerably evolved, since it was first expounded in the
Vellore Tanneries case

CONCLUSION
Sustainable development is the theory that ecological conservation and
development must coexist, and that the environment must not be
compromised for development.
This theory was has been historically accepted in the general law of many
states, and it came on to the international arena with the Stockholm
Declaration of 1972. In India, Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India
was one of the first cases to bring this theory into the ambit of domestic law.
the various aspects was analysed in this case, and how it has affected
environmental jurisprudence in India.
I would like to conclude by saying that in Vellore Tanneries case, the Indian
judiciary for the first time looked at sustainable development as an integral
part of the law of the land, and set an important precedent by holding that
the environment could not be compromised at the cost of development.