The Dehradun Limestone Quarries: Where the Judicial Remedy Began

In one line

A letter about limestone quarrying in the Doon Valley became what the Court itself called the first case of its kind in the country on environment and ecological balance, and the Court closed the mines.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: in Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1985 SC 652, the Supreme Court treated a letter as a writ petition, appointed the Bhargav Committee to inspect and classify the limestone quarries of the Dehradun and Mussoorie hills, and ordered the closure of those in the worst category and in the Sahasradhara block, holding that the hardship to the lessees was the price that has to be paid for protecting and safeguarding the right of the people to live in a healthy environment with minimal disturbance of ecological balance.

Why it comes first

The Court itself said that this was the first case of its kind in the country involving issues relating to environment and ecological balance, and the methods it used there are the working methods of the environmental jurisdiction today.

A letter was treated as a writ petition, which is epistolary jurisdiction.

An expert committee was appointed by the Court to find the facts, because the facts were technical and neither party could be trusted with them.

A continuing mandamus was created, the case remaining on the board for years with orders made as the position changed, which is why there are reported judgments of 1985, 1987 and 1988 in the same matter.

And a working industry was closed on environmental grounds, before the Environment (Protection) Act existed. The writ petitions were filed more than three years before that Act came into force, and the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, though in force, was not considered in the 1985 order; that order names no article of the Constitution for the right of the people to live in a healthy environment, and was made on petitions under article 32.

The case

Facts. A letter to the Supreme Court from the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra complained of unauthorised and unscientific limestone quarrying in the hills around Dehradun and Mussoorie. The quarrying was blasting the limestone bands that held the water of the Doon Valley, causing landslides, blocking the springs and streams, and destroying the ecology of a valley whose water supply depended on those bands. The Court treated the letter as a writ petition and appointed a committee headed by D.N. Bhargav to inspect the quarries and classify them; the Government of India had separately appointed a Working Group under the same person.

Held. In the order of 12 March 1985 the Court directed that the quarries classified in category (c) by the Bhargav Committee, which had already been closed under the Committee's directions, should not be allowed to be operated, that any stay orders permitting them to continue stood dissolved, and that any subsisting leases in respect of them stood terminated without any liability against the State of Uttar Pradesh. The quarries in the Sahasradhara block, though placed in category (b), were also to be closed forthwith, and pending suits or writ petitions for continuing the closed leases stood dismissed. The category (a) quarries outside the city limits of Mussoorie were allowed to operate, subject to the Mines Act, 1952, the Metalliferous Mines Regulations, 1961 and the other relevant laws; the category (a) quarries inside the city limits and the category (b) quarries were not to operate until a high powered committee headed by D. Bandyopadhyay had examined any scheme their lessees submitted and the Court had considered its report; and the lessees of the closed quarries were given four weeks to remove minerals already extracted.