The Other Directive Principles

In one line

MU asks about "directive principles related to environment protection" in the plural, and a student who names only Article 48A has answered half the question.

Five other Principles carry environmental weight. Two of them, Articles 47 and 49, are worded more strongly than Article 48A itself, and one of them, Article 47, is the Principle that actually decided Ratlam.

Why the others matter

Article 48A was inserted in 1976. Everything that happened before that, and a good deal of what happened after, was argued on Principles that do not use the word environment at all. A court reading a statute or a fundamental right against Part IV is not confined to Article 48A, and the cases show it reaching for whichever Principle fits the harm.

There is also a drafting point worth making. Article 48A says the State "shall endeavour". Article 47 says the State "shall regard" certain things "as among its primary duties". Article 49 says "It shall be the obligation of the State". The environmental Principle is the weakest of the three in its own language. A candidate who notices that is showing something better than recall.

Article 47: public health

"The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties and, in particular, the State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health."

What it reaches. Sanitation, drainage, sewage, drinking water, and any emission or discharge that makes people ill. Pollution is a public health problem before it is anything else, and Article 47 is the provision that says so.

Why it is stronger than it looks. The main clause is not an endeavour clause. The State "shall regard" the improvement of public health as among its primary duties. Only the subsidiary clause about intoxicating drinks is an endeavour.

Where it did the work. In Municipal Council, Ratlam v. Shri Vardhichand, AIR 1980 SC 1622, decided before Article 21 had been read as reaching the environment, the Supreme Court upheld an order under section 133 of the Code of Criminal Procedure requiring a municipality to build drains and stop open drainage, and treated the municipality's statutory duty as reinforced by the constitutional concern with public health. The chapter on Ratlam works the case in full.

Article 39(b): the material resources of the community

"that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good".

What it reaches. Forests, minerals, water, land and the coast are material resources of the community. The clause supports two distinct arguments.