LLM Group 6 Environment and Legal Order Prevention and Control of Pollution 2024 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: the definition asked for is of pollution generally, so give the Environment (Protection) Act's definition and connect it to air. The second limb is about cities, so organise the methods by the urban sources they target: vehicles, construction and road dust, industry, burning of waste, household and commercial fuel, and individual conduct, followed by the city-wide methods of monitoring and planning, winter emergency measures and regional co-ordination. Name the legal basis of each method and close with a view on which methods have actually worked in Indian cities.

Pollution defined

Section 2(c) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 defines environmental pollution as the presence in the environment of any environmental pollutant, and section 2(b) defines an environmental pollutant as any solid, liquid or gaseous substance present in such concentration as may be, or tend to be, injurious to environment. The environment, under section 2(a), includes water, air and land and the inter-relationship among them and with human beings and other living things.

Method one: controlling vehicles

Cleaner vehicles and fuel. Emission standards for new vehicles have been progressively tightened, and Bharat Stage VI norms have applied to new vehicles since April 2020.

Clean fuel for public transport. The most effective single intervention in an Indian city was judicial. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, (1998) 6 SCC 63, decided on 28 July 1998, the Government's White Paper attributed seventy per cent of Delhi's air pollution to vehicles, compared with twenty per cent in 1970, and an authority constituted in January 1998 found that none of the major measures proposed had been implemented. The Supreme Court fixed deadlines for withdrawing commercial vehicles more than fifteen years old by 2 October 1998 and for converting public transport to a single clean fuel.

Retiring old vehicles. The Environment Protection (End-of-Life Vehicles) Rules, 2025, in force from 1 April 2025, place extended producer responsibility for scrapping on manufacturers and require a registered owner to deposit an end-of-life vehicle within one hundred and eighty days.

Directions to builders and municipalities. Because a construction site is not obviously an "industrial plant" requiring consent under section 21 of the Air Act, the State Board's power under section 31A to direct any person, officer or authority, including a municipality, is often the practical tool.

Mechanical sweeping. The Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) 2.0 funds mechanised road sweepers, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs reported in December 2025 that 152 towns, National Clean Air Programme cities and those above five lakh population, were eligible and that plans for 580 sweepers in 113 of them had been approved.

Method three: controlling industry in and around cities

Consent and standards. Industrial plants in air pollution control areas need the State Board's prior consent under section 21, with approved control equipment and chimneys, and may not emit above the standards under section 22. The Control of Air Pollution (Grant, Refusal or Cancellation of Consent) Guidelines, 2025 require online continuous emission monitoring where applicable.

Method five: cleaner household and commercial fuel

Cooking with wood, dung and coal pollutes both indoor and outdoor air. Nationally, the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, reported for India in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2021, attributed 0.61 million deaths in 2019 to household air pollution. In a city the method is to extend clean fuel to slum and informal households and to small eateries. Section 19(3) of the Air Act lets the State Government prohibit, in an air pollution control area, the use of any fuel other than a fuel approved by the State Board, with at least three months' notice, and section 19(4) forbids unapproved appliances.

Method seven: monitoring, planning and control areas

A city cannot control what it does not measure. Ambient monitoring against the 2009 standards, city action plans under the National Clean Air Programme, and the declaration of air pollution control areas under section 19 of the Air Act together give a city its baseline, its targets and the legal area within which consent and fuel controls apply. The Ministry reported in July 2024 that 95 of the 131 programme cities had improved annual PM10 levels over 2017-18, but only 18 had met the national standard in 2023-24.

Method eight: winter emergency measures

When air quality collapses in winter, cities impose temporary restrictions on construction, traffic, industry and burning. In the National Capital Region, the Commission for Air Quality Management uses a graded response under which restrictions are triggered by measured air quality, relying on its power under section 12 of the 2021 Act to regulate or prohibit polluting activities and to direct closure. Elsewhere, section 31A of the Air Act gives State Boards comparable power.

Conclusion. Pollution is the presence in the environment of a substance at a concentration that is, or tends to be, injurious, as sections 2(b) and 2(c) of the Environment (Protection) Act provide, and air pollution is its presence in the atmosphere. Indian cities control it by targeting each source: cleaner vehicles and fuels, clean public transport, scrapping of old vehicles and roadside checks; responsibility for construction waste and directions on dust; consent, monitoring, closure and relocation for industry; a ban on burning waste; cleaner household fuel; and prohibitions on harmful conduct such as public smoking. These are supported by monitoring and city action plans, winter emergency measures and regional co-ordination. The Supreme Court's orders on Delhi's transport and the Taj industries show that fuel substitution backed by deadlines works, while dust, waste burning and household fuel remain the unfinished agenda of urban air.