B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 10 Environmental Law 2020 Nov Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: what environmental pollution is (EPA s.2(b) and (c)); why the statement is broadly true; population growth as a cause (the numbers; pressure on land, water and forests; crowded cities; waste; vehicles; poverty), with cases (Almitra Patel, Ratlam, the Delhi vehicles order); economic development as a cause (industry, mining, energy, big projects, hazardous processes, farming, consumption), with cases (Rural Litigation, the Kanpur tanneries, the Taj Trapezium, Bhopal); how the two work together (the I = PAT formula); how far the statement holds (consumption, falling fertility, development as a cure, weak enforcement, other causes); the response of law and policy (Entry 20A, Articles 48A and 51A(g), Stockholm Principle 16, Rio Principle 8, the pollution Acts, Vellore); and a conclusion.

Cause 1: uncontrolled growth of population

The numbers. India counted about 36.1 crore people at the 1951 Census and about 121.09 crore at the 2011 Census. The United Nations estimated that India passed China as the world's most populous country in April 2023, at about 142.6 crore. The population has nearly quadrupled in seventy years, on the same land and the same rivers.

Population growth causes pollution in these ways:

1. Pressure on land and forests. More people need more farmland, fuelwood, fodder and housing. Forests are cleared, soil erodes and wildlife loses its habitat.
2. Pressure on water. Demand for drinking and irrigation water rises. Groundwater falls, and rivers receive more sewage than they can dilute.
3. Crowded cities. People move to cities faster than cities can build drains, sewage plants and waste systems. Slums grow without latrines or clean water.
4. Solid waste. Every extra household adds garbage and plastic. Much of it is dumped in the open, burnt, or thrown into rivers.

Municipal Council, Ratlam v. Vardhichand, AIR 1980 SC 1622. Slum dwellers in Ratlam had no public latrines and used the roadside. Open drains stank, and an alcohol plant let its effluent into a public street. The Supreme Court upheld a Magistrate's order under section 133 of the Criminal Procedure Code directing the municipality to build drains. A municipality cannot plead lack of funds to escape its duty to public health. Here crowding without sanitation was itself the pollution.

M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (the vehicular pollution order of 28 July 1998), AIR 1998 SC 2963. The Government's own White Paper recorded that vehicles caused seventy per cent of Delhi's air pollution, against twenty per cent in 1970. The Supreme Court set time-bound directions. Commercial vehicles more than fifteen years old had to stop plying, and the public transport fleet had to move to a single clean fuel. A growing city with ever more vehicles had produced a new main source of air pollution.

Cause 2: economic development

Since 1947 India has pursued development through industry, power, mining, irrigation and modern farming. These raised incomes and reduced poverty. But development that ignores the environment pollutes in these ways:

Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1985 SC 652. Limestone quarrying in the Dehradun and Mussoorie hills caused landslides, blocked water channels and damaged the ecology of the Doon Valley. The Supreme Court closed the most damaging quarries despite the loss to the lessees and to the economy. It called this the price to be paid for protecting the people's right to live in a healthy environment.

M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (the Kanpur tanneries case), AIR 1988 SC 1037. The tanneries of Jajmau near Kanpur discharged untreated effluent, including chromium, into the Ganga. The city's sewage went into the river too. The Supreme Court held that a tannery's financial capacity is irrelevant: one that does not set up a primary treatment plant must close. The river suffered from both causes at once, industry and a crowded city.

M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (the Taj Trapezium case), AIR 1997 SC 734. Sulphur dioxide from foundries, chemical works, the Mathura refinery and the Firozabad glass industry formed acid rain. It was yellowing the marble of the Taj Mahal. The Supreme Court applied the precautionary principle. It directed 292 industries in the Taj Trapezium Zone to switch to natural gas or move out, with protection for their workers.

How far the statement holds

1. Consumption matters as much as numbers. One person in a rich country uses many times the resources of a poor Indian. Rio Principle 8 therefore names "unsustainable patterns of production and consumption" beside demographic policy.
2. Population growth is slowing. The National Family Health Survey of 2019 to 2021 put India's total fertility rate at 2.0, below the replacement level of 2.1.
3. Development can also cure pollution. Stockholm Principle 9 says that environmental problems caused by under-development can best be remedied by accelerated development. A richer country can afford treatment plants, cleaner fuels and inspectors.
4. Weak enforcement. Much pollution comes from the failure to apply laws already in force, as Ratlam and the 1998 Delhi order show.
5. Other causes. Natural events such as dust storms and forest fires, and pollution crossing borders from other countries, also play a part.

So the precise claim is that uncontrolled growth and unplanned development are the main causes. Growth and development as such are not.

4. Controlling development. The Water Act 1974, the Air Act 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 control discharges through consent and standards. The EIA Notification 2006 requires large projects to be assessed before clearance.
5. Sustainable development. Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum v. Union of India, AIR 1996 SC 2715. Tanneries in Tamil Nadu earned foreign exchange and gave jobs, but their effluent poisoned farmland and the Palar river. The Supreme Court did not shut the industry down. It held sustainable development, the precautionary principle and polluter pays part of Indian law, and required treatment and compensation. That is the balance the question calls for.

Conclusion. The statement is broadly correct. Uncontrolled population growth crowds cities and strains water, land and forests, multiplying waste and vehicles (Almitra Patel, Ratlam, the 1998 Delhi order). Development pursued without care brings effluent, smoke, mining damage and disaster (Rural Litigation, the Kanpur tanneries, the Taj, Bhopal). But both are causes only when uncontrolled and unplanned, and consumption, technology and weak enforcement matter as much. The law's answer is to plan both within nature's limits through sustainable development (Vellore), not to stop either.