Introduction to PIL

Presently in India the people are participating in a form of legal debate known as public interest litigation or `PIL´. This form of litigation covers issues that effect the rights of all Indian citizens. These rights include the right to a clean environment. From this, public interest litigation provides citizens the opportunity to stand for the public interest and challenge structures of power from within the constitutional framework.

The Indian Constitution maintains that it is the responsibility of the government and its citizens to protect and improve the environment and its natural wildlife and forests. In 1977 the Forty-Second Amendment opened the door to environmental awareness and law by declaring the essential right to live in a clean environment and the duty of all citizens to protect and improve the environment. The articles that support this statement are the reason for the commencement of several environmental Acts such as the 1974 Water Act, the 1980 Forest Conservation Act, and several others. The Central Polution Control Board lays down environmental standards, while State Control Boards inspect industrial and governmental treatment plants.

Environmental protection is included in the Directive Principles of State Policy and the Fundamental Duties of Indian Constitution but environmental rights are not listed under the justicable Fundamental Rights of the Indian Constitution. Therefore they cannot be directly enforced. The loop hole, however, is the Indian Contitiutional right to life. Justices read this Article 21 with Article 32 to ensure that ´a citizen has a right to to have recourse to [the remedies provided by] Article 32 of the Constitution for removing the polution of water or air which may be detrimental to the quality of life`. This allows the courts to read the Directive Principles into the Fundamental Rights. Environmental cases have also benefitted from the procedural advantages that come with the enforcement of constitutional rights.

Laying the conceptual foundation for ´PIL`, Justice Iyer made the following comments in 1976:

Our adjectival branch of jurisprudence, by in large, deals not with sophisticated litigants but the rural poor, the urban lay and the weaker societal segments for whom law will be an added terror if technical mis-descriptions and deficiencies in drafting pleadings and setting out the cause -title create a secret weapon to non-suit a part. Where foul play is absent, and fairness is not faulted, latitude is a grace of processual justice.

In public interest litigation the issue of standing is relaxed to allow citizens to approach the court. It envisions access to justice through `class actions´ and representative proceedings. It is a fair and unique way to bring about legal debate and social reform.