KSLU Solved Question Papers
Environmental Law
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 10
2021 Sep Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 10 Environmental Law 2021 Sep Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 21 October 2026.
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The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by Karnataka State Law University at the 2021 Sep examination.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2021 Sep examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2021 Sep examination, reproduced as Karnataka State Law University set them, in the order it set them. Long reading passages are shortened to their first and last lines and our summary; the original paper prints them in full. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 80 · 20 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Q1
(a)Explain the Ancient Indian Environmental Ethics.[10]
Answer
For full marks, cover: what "environmental ethics" means; the ancient Indian ethic in its layers: the Vedas (the five elements, the hymn to the earth in the Atharva Veda), the Upanishads (the unity of all life), the epics and Puranas (sacred rivers, trees and animals), Buddhist and Jain ahimsa, the Dharmashastra (wrongs against water, trees and public places), Kautilya and Ashoka (rule and edict), and community practice (sacred groves, the Bishnoi); how the ethic lives in modern law (Article 51A(g)) and in the courts (Nagaraja, Chinnappa); and an honest assessment.
What environmental ethics means
Environmental ethics is the study of the moral relationship between human beings and the natural world. It asks whether nature has value only because it is useful to people (an anthropocentric view), or also in itself (an ecocentric view). Ancient Indian thought leaned strongly to the second view, long before modern philosophy took it up.
1. The Vedas: the elements and the earth
The Vedic texts treat the world as made of five elements, the panchamahabhuta: earth (prithvi), water (jal), fire (agni), air (vayu) and space (akash). Each was revered as divine and treated as something that must not be fouled. These are, in substance, the media that modern law regulates.
The Atharva Veda contains a long hymn to the earth, the Prithvi Sukta. It addresses the earth as mother and the speaker as her child. It asks her forgiveness for what is dug from her and promises not to injure her vital parts. The relationship is one of duty, not ownership. The Atharva Veda also praises water and medicinal plants as healing.
2. The Upanishads: the unity of life
The Upanishads teach that one reality underlies all beings. If humans and other creatures share a common essence, then destroying nature or harming animals is not merely wasteful but wrong. The Isha Upanishad is often cited for the idea that the universe and its creatures do not belong to human beings alone.
3. The epics and Puranas: sacred nature in daily life
The later texts carried the ethic into popular practice. Rivers such as the Ganga became goddesses, trees such as the peepal, banyan and tulsi were worshipped, and animals were linked with deities. Planting trees and digging wells and tanks were treated as acts of merit.
4. Buddhist and Jain thought: ahimsa
The doctrine of ahimsa, non-injury to any living being, was carried furthest by Jain thought and is the first precept in Buddhism. It protects every creature, useful or not. Buddhist monastic rules forbade fouling water and harming plants.
5. The Dharmashastra: wrongs with penalties
The law books, such as the Manusmriti, treated fouling water, damaging trees and leaving filth in public places as wrongs with fines. The protection of the realm's resources was part of the king's duty.
6. Kautilya and Ashoka: ethic becomes rule
Kautilya's Arthashastra set up a Superintendent of Forests, protected areas where animals could not be killed, and graded fines for damaging trees. Ashoka's fifth Pillar Edict, addressed to all his subjects, forbade the killing of many named animals and the burning of forests without reason. He also planted shade trees and dug wells along roads.
7. Communities: sacred groves and the Bishnoi
Sacred groves, patches of forest dedicated to a deity, survive in thousands across India: devarakadu in Karnataka, kavu in Kerala, devrai in Maharashtra. No tree may be cut in them. The Bishnoi of Rajasthan made protection of trees and animals a religious rule. At Khejarli in 1730, Amrita Devi and many others are said to have died to save khejri trees from being felled.
The ethic in modern law
The Forty-second Amendment of 1976 wrote the ethic into the Constitution. Article 51A(g) makes it the duty of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment, "and to have compassion for living creatures". That last phrase is the language of ahimsa, not of pollution control.
Animal Welfare Board of India v. A. Nagaraja, (2014) 7 SCC 547. Jallikattu and bullock-cart races were challenged as cruelty to bulls. The Supreme Court quoted the Isha Upanishad: no creature is superior to any other, and no species should encroach on the rights of others. It held that the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act gives animals rights and rests on eco-centric principles. It read the Act with Article 51A(g).
K.M. Chinnappa v. Union of India, (2002) 10 SCC 606. Iron ore mining inside the Kudremukh National Park was allowed only until 2005, on strict ecological conditions. Explaining the duty to protect nature, the Court recalled that Manu prescribed punishments for injuring plants. It noted that Kautilya graded the fine by the importance of the part of the tree. It also quoted Ashoka's decree against killing animals and burning forests.
An honest assessment
Strengths. The ethic is ancient, rich and ecocentric. It supplies a reason to protect nature for its own sake, which modern Indian statutes, focused on harm to people, lack. It answers the claim that environmentalism is a foreign idea.
Limits. It was mostly ethics, not enforceable law, and gave the subject no right against the ruler. Its motives were religious, so protection was uneven. Reverence did not prevent degradation: rivers held sacred are among the most polluted in the country. And the texts speak with many voices across many centuries.
Conclusion. Ancient Indian environmental ethics saw nature as sacred and owed duties. The Vedas revered the five elements and the mother earth, the Upanishads taught the unity of all life, and Buddhism and Jainism taught ahimsa. The law books, Kautilya and Ashoka turned parts of this ethic into rules, and communities kept it alive in sacred groves and Bishnoi villages. Today it lives in Article 51A(g) and in judgments such as Nagaraja and Chinnappa. It is a valuable source of principle, though never a guarantee of protection.
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