LLM Group 6 Environment and Legal Order Environment and Development Law and Policy Solved Question Papers with Answers 2015 to 2026 - Mumbai University | munotes

Seven files in this folder hold ELEVEN distinct printed papers and seventy eight questions, and all seventy eight are answered here. Four of the seven scans carry two complete and different hundred mark papers rather than a paper and its Marathi translation. The 2016 file holds QP Code 11772 from the first half sitting and Q.P. Code 308201 from the second, the 2018 file Q.P. Code 50523 and Q.P. Code 50525, the 2019 file Q.P. Code 50524 and paper 79887, whose third page is paper 79887 again in Marathi and not a third paper, and the 2022 file papers 21017 and 33639. The 2015 file is QP Code 12207, sat in March 2015, and the two newest files are single papers under subject code 76018: form 69208 in 2024 and form 05038 in 2025-2026, which the invigilator dated 27 February 2026.

The shape of the paper has hardly moved. Every paper allows three hours for a hundred marks and tells you to attempt any four questions, all carrying equal marks, so each answer is worth twenty five. Ten papers set SEVEN questions and the 2015 paper sets eight. Only the second 2022 paper prints the figure, in its instructions, Each Question carries 25 Marks; on the other ten, twenty five is the paper's own arithmetic. No question is compulsory anywhere in the folder. Every paper closes with a short notes question asking for any two, offering five options on five papers, four on four papers and three on both 2022 papers. Ten of the eleven papers tell you to cite case law; the second 2022 paper, which prints the marks instead, is the one that does not.

What recurs is more concentrated here than in most folders of this course, and the counts are by paper, so a topic set twice on one paper counts once. Three topics are on EVERY paper. ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL WRITINGS on the environment are a full question on all eleven, and the opening question on nine of them. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT is a full question on all eleven. POPULATION and its impact on the environment is a full question on ten and a short note on the eleventh, the first 2022 paper. The CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS on the environment are a full question on nine, and the two papers without one, the second 2022 paper and 2025-2026, reach the Constitution through public interest litigation and through the constitutional foundation of the public trust doctrine. FOREST POLICY and forest conservation are on eight papers, five times as a full question. The CONCEPT of environment, conventional and modern, and WATER POLICY are on seven papers each, mostly as short notes. The ROLE OF GOVERNMENT is in the words of a question on six papers, three times tied to forests and once to water policy. The STOCKHOLM and RIO conferences are a short note on six papers, and ABSOLUTE LIABILITY and the PUBLIC TRUST DOCTRINE are on five each.

That produces the most useful fact in this note, and it was computed by testing every combination of topics against every paper rather than estimated. On the seven papers from 2015 to 2019, EXACTLY ONE set of four topics gives you four questions you can answer on every paper, counting a short notes question only when two of its options fall inside: ancient and medieval writings, sustainable development, population and the constitutional provisions. No other set of four does. On the second 2022 paper and the 2025-2026 paper those four give only three questions that fall squarely within them, because each of those papers asks about the Constitution through public interest litigation or the public trust doctrine rather than directly. What closes the gap is JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AND PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION: with it, the five topics give four answerable questions on every one of the eleven papers.

The margin is thin on those same two papers. On the second 2022 paper the fourth question is the one on the measures the international community took from Stockholm to Rio+20, which rewards a candidate who has prepared the conferences as well as the concept, and on the 2025-2026 paper those five leave nothing to spare. The best insurance for both is the Stockholm and Rio conferences: they are a short note on six papers, and the 2025-2026 paper offers both of them as options in its notes question, which is then answerable too.

The papers from 2022 onwards have moved in visible ways. JUDICIAL ACTIVISM, public interest litigation and the role of the judiciary in shaping environmental jurisprudence were never set before 2022 and are a full question on all four of the newest papers, and Municipal Council, Ratlam v. Vardhichand is named in the words of a question on both 2022 papers. The RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT, set on no paper before 2022, is a short note on three of the four newest. The CONSERVATION STRATEGY, a full question on four papers between 2016 and 2019, has not been set since, and the concept of environment has not been a full question since the first 2018 paper. The 2025-2026 paper asks two things no earlier paper asked as a full question: the contribution of the Five Year Plans, set before only as a short note on the second 2018 paper, and the public trust doctrine, set before only as a short note on four papers.

Three full questions are printed in the same words, or so nearly the same that one answer serves, on two papers each, and each pair carries the identical answer here, because a candidate sitting either paper writes the same thing: the brief review of ancient and medieval writings on environmental protection, on the first 2018 and first 2019 papers; the concept of sustainable development at national and international level, on the first 2016 and second 2018 papers; and the impact of population explosion on environment, on the first 2018 paper and in 2024. Eight short note options repeat the same way. The PUBLIC TRUST DOCTRINE is a note on four papers, 2015, the second 2016 paper and both 2018 papers, and WATER POLICY IN INDIA on three, both 2016 papers and the second 2022 paper. Six more are set twice each: the Rio conference in 2015 and on the first 2016 paper; the Stockholm Conference on the second 2016 and first 2018 papers; the right to a clean environment on both 2018 papers; forest policy in India in 2015 and on the second 2019 paper; environment, emerging issues and challenges, on both 2022 papers; and the right to development on the first 2022 paper and in 2024. Each note is the same text wherever its printed topic is the same.

Beware the questions that LOOK repeated and are not, because the difference is the whole answer. Ancient and medieval writings are set on all eleven papers in TEN different wordings. Five ask for the writings on environment PROTECTION, the 2015 paper adding their EFFICACY and the second 2019 paper customs and traditions; the second 2018 paper asks only for the writings on environment; the second 2016 paper wants environmental JURISPRUDENCE in ancient and medieval India; the first 2022 paper the SIGNIFICANCE of protection in the writings; and the three newest papers the IDEA of environment in the writings and traditions. Each wording has its own answer. Sustainable development is asked as the concept at national and international level, as its salient features, as its emerging challenges in the Indian context, as the international measures from Stockholm to Rio+20 and as its relation to environmental justice and the Sustainable Development Goals. The first 2016 paper asks for the fundamental RIGHTS and directive principles and the second 2019 paper for the fundamental DUTIES and directive principles. And absolute liability is three different short notes, in environment protection, in environmental accidents and of hazardous industry, besides the full questions on it in the second 2019 and second 2022 papers.

A few faults in the printing are worth knowing so that you do not think you have misread. The first 2018 paper asks for the provisions under CHAPTER III AND IV of the Constitution, which has Parts, not Chapters, and the answer reads Part III, the Fundamental Rights, and Part IV, the Directive Principles. The first 2019 paper sets a note on the GLOBAL WARMING ACTION PLAN, which names no instrument, and the note answers on India's National Action Plan on Climate Change, 2008. The first 2022 paper sets a quotation on the right to life as a life of dignity free from disease and infection before asking about the Ratlam verdict, and the judgment contains no such sentence and never mentions Article 21; the words summarise the later Article 21 cases that Ratlam made possible. The second 2022 paper quotes Sustainable development rests on a commitment to equity with future generations, a sentence that is not in the Brundtland Report, although the Report says the same thing in its own words. Both answers say so before answering what the examiner meant. And the RIO-DE-JANEIRA CONFERENCE of the 2015 paper is the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

Every answer here is written on policy and law as they stand today, and this subject is dated faster by policy than by statute. The National Forest Policy, 1988 is still the policy in force, because the Draft National Forest Policy of 2018 was never adopted, and the National Water Policy, 2012 is still the water policy. The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 was renamed the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam in 2023 and confined to notified and recorded forests, and in Ashok Kumar Sharma v. Union of India the Supreme Court ordered on 19 February 2024 that the Godavarman principles continue to be observed until forests are identified. The Planning Commission gave way to NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015, so the Twelfth Plan, which ended in 2017, was the last. India became the most populous country in 2023, and its total fertility rate is now 1.9, below replacement. The Code of Criminal Procedure was replaced on 1 July 2024, so the magistrate's order to remove a nuisance, the power at issue in Ratlam, is now made under section 152 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita.

Ten of the eleven papers ask for case law, and every answer here is built on the decisions this subject actually turns on, among them Municipal Council, Ratlam v. Vardhichand on the municipality that could not plead lack of funds against a public nuisance, Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra v. State of U.P. on the Doon valley quarries, M.C. Mehta v. Union of India on the oleum gas leak and absolute liability, Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action v. Union of India and Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India on the polluter pays and precautionary principles, M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath on the public trust doctrine, T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India on what counts as a forest, Narmada Bachao Andolan v. Union of India on the Sardar Sarovar dam, Orissa Mining Corporation Ltd v. Ministry of Environment and Forest on the Gram Sabhas of the Niyamgiri hills, M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India on the right against the adverse effects of climate change, and Vanashakti v. Union of India, 29 July 2026, on environmental clearance granted after the event.

These are model answers prepared by munotes. They are a study aid and not official University answer keys, which the University of Mumbai does not publish.