The Legislative Lists and Article 253

In one line

There is no entry called environment in any of the three Lists, and the two most important environmental statutes in India were passed under an article about implementing international agreements.

That is the whole chapter in a sentence, and it is a point almost no candidate makes.

The scheme

Article 245(1): "Parliament may make laws for the whole or any part of the territory of India, and the Legislature of a State may make laws for the whole or any part of the State."

Article 246 distributes the subject matter. Parliament has exclusive power over List I, the Union List. Parliament and the State legislatures both have power over List III, the Concurrent List. The State legislature has exclusive power over List II, the State List.

Article 248 gives Parliament exclusive residuary power over any matter not enumerated in the Concurrent or the State List.

Where the environment sits

Nowhere by name. No List contains an entry called environment, pollution, or ecology. Environmental subjects sit wherever their subject matter sits, and the reasons are in the chapter on the Constitution in 1950.

List II, the State List

• Entry 6: "Public health and sanitation; hospitals and dispensaries."
• Entry 14: agriculture and animal husbandry, including protection against animal diseases.
• Entry 17: "Water, that is to say, water supplies, irrigation and canals, drainage and embankments, water storage and water power subject to the provisions of entry 56 of List I."
• Entry 18: "Land, that is to say, rights in or over land, land tenures ... land improvement and agricultural loans; colonization."
• Entry 21: "Fisheries."
• Entry 23: "Regulation of mines and mineral development subject to the provisions of List I with respect to regulation and development under the control of the Union."
• Entry 24: "Industries subject to the provisions of entries 7 and 52 of List I."
• Entries 19 and 20 were omitted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act 1976, section 57, with effect from 3 January 1977. They were forests and the protection of wild animals and birds.

List III, the Concurrent List

• Entry 17: "Prevention of cruelty to animals."
• Entry 17A: "Forests."
• Entry 17B: "Protection of wild animals and birds."
• Entry 18: "Adulteration of foodstuffs and other goods."
• Entry 19: "Drugs and poisons, subject to the provisions of entry 59 of List I with respect to opium."
• Entry 20: "Economic and social planning."
• Entry 20A: "Population control and family planning."

Entries 11A, 17A, 17B and 20A were inserted by the same section 57 of the Forty-second Amendment, with effect from the same date. So the movement of forests and wildlife out of List II and into List III was one operation.