The Environment (Protection) Act 1986

In one line

The Environment (Protection) Act 1986 gives the Central Government a general power to do whatever it considers necessary to protect the environment, and almost all modern Indian environmental regulation is made under it.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 is an umbrella statute enacted after the Bhopal disaster and, as its Statement of Objects and Reasons records, to implement further the decisions of the Stockholm Conference. Section 3(1) confers on the Central Government the power to take all such measures as it deems necessary or expedient for the purpose of protecting and improving the quality of the environment and preventing, controlling and abating environmental pollution. Section 5 confers the power to give directions, including the power to order closure and to stop electricity or water. Its offences were converted into monetary penalties by the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act 2023.

Why it was passed

The Statement of Objects and Reasons, quoted by the Supreme Court in the Vellore case, records that the decline in environmental quality had been evidenced by increasing pollution, loss of vegetal cover and biological diversity, excessive concentrations of harmful chemicals in the ambient atmosphere and in food chains, growing risks of environmental accidents and threats to life support systems; that the world community's resolve found expression in the decisions taken at Stockholm; that India participated and strongly voiced the environmental concerns; that the need for a general legislation further to implement those decisions had become increasingly evident; and that existing laws generally focus on specific types of pollution or on specific categories of hazardous substances, leaving major areas of environmental hazard uncovered and gaps in areas of major concern.

Three reasons in that passage. A general statute was needed because the existing ones were medium-specific; there were gaps; and there had been growing risks of environmental accidents, which is the Bhopal reason stated without naming it.

Section 3: the umbrella power

Section 3(1). Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Central Government shall have the power to take all such measures as it deems necessary or expedient for the purpose of protecting and improving the quality of the environment and preventing, controlling and abating environmental pollution.

Section 3(2) particularises, without prejudice to that generality, fourteen matters. The ones that carry the modern regime are: coordination of the actions of State Governments and authorities; a nation-wide programme; laying down standards for the quality of environment; laying down standards for emission or discharge from various sources, with a proviso permitting different standards for different sources; restriction of areas in which industries, operations or processes shall not be carried out or shall be carried out subject to safeguards; procedures and safeguards for the prevention of accidents and remedial measures; procedures and safeguards for the handling of hazardous substances; and inspection with power to give directions.