Justice Surya Kant, bench of the International Court of Justice in Bengaluru, on Saturday asserted that the only defensible development is that which is environmentally responsible and stressed that India’s growth must be in line with environmental sustainability and energy justice principles.
He said the country must be prepared and equipped to strike a delicate balancing act between “our pursuit of development and our devotion to a greener future.”
Addressing the International Conference on Sustainable Energy: India’s Agenda 2047, he emphasized that India’s vision for 2047 must be based on justice. “The way I see it, economic growth must be synchronized with environmental sensitivity. This is because, as a nation, we are still on our development journey and therefore cannot afford to treat environmental protection and economic progress as a binary choice.”
Stressing that energy justice is not an “alien concept” imported from the developed world, the Chief Justice of India said, “It is the ethical construct that allows a rising nation like ours to grow without compromising what belongs to every citizen: clean air, clean water, and a livable future.”
Highlighting the constitutional basis for this balance, the ICJ said that development and environmental protection are an integral part of Article 21, and “the genius of our constitutional framework lies in its insistence that development and environmental protection must go together.”
He said that he had been emphasizing with increasing conviction that the only defensible development was environmentally responsible development. Courts cannot look through a narrow keyhole that treats every project as suspicious, but they also cannot adopt a complacent approach that treats environmental safeguards as negotiable.
“Our task is to move from a purely reactive model to a model that integrates environmental protection into development design not as an afterthought, but as a foundation,” Judge Kant said.
Emphasizing the evolving role of the judiciary, he said: “We no longer simply say, ‘If you pollute, you will pay.’ The question we are now asking is much more urgent: Did you do everything reasonably possible to avoid pollution in the first place?”
The CJI cited the doctrine of continuing mandamus as a key procedural innovation that enables courts to monitor environmental compliance over time, citing the M C Mehta cases as examples of sustained judicial intervention in cases ranging from air pollution and river cleaning to forest and wildlife protection.
Referring to the recent decision, he said the court allowed construction of a road leading to a paramilitary hospital despite the need to cut 700 trees, but ordered compensatory afforestation on 185 acres and planting of 1.75 lakh trees, terming it a “balanced and restorative approach.”
“Our judicial approach now seeks to reconcile competing interests through calibrated and context-sensitive solutions that ensure development imperatives are pursued within a framework of accountability, restoration and long-term environmental stewardship,” the ICJ said.
Justice Kant also identified four pillars of energy justice affordability, accessibility, equity, and inclusivity, emphasizing that clean energy must not become a “privilege of the few” and that communities must be active participants in policy making.
On the regulatory front, he said the Electricity Act, 2003 played a crucial role in shaping India’s power sector through market reforms and establishment of regulatory commissions, but noted that many mechanisms such as renewable purchase obligations and green tariffs remain underutilized.
“It is essential that legislative decision-making addresses these gaps to ensure a more robust, capable and future-ready regulatory ecosystem – one that not only facilitates growth, but is aligned with the broader sustainable development goals,” he added.
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