India’s age‑old reverence for nature reflected in the Constitution, says CJI Surya Kant

Speaking to a packed audience at the International Conference on “The Future of Environment and Climate Dynamics” in Delhi, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant spoke with a quiet conviction that the nation’s love for nature is far older than any modern policy.

“From the first stirrings of civilization, India has held Mother Nature in reverence,” he said, pausing as if to let the sentiment settle. “That deep‑rooted respect finds its echo in our Constitution – not as a dry political charter but as a moral covenant with past, present and future generations.”

He pointed to two key constitutional articles that act like signposts on this journey. Article 48A, he noted, explicitly directs the State to protect and improve the environment, while Article 51A(g) enjoins every citizen to do the same. “These words are seeds,” the CJI remarked, “and they need the nurturing waters of judicial wisdom to sprout into real protection.”

The Supreme Court, he continued, has grown into the “banyan tree of environmental justice,” its roots deep in India’s civilisational ethos. Over decades, the Court has read the right to life in Article 21 to include a right to a healthy environment, and it has articulated principles such as the precautionary principle, the polluter‑pays rule, absolute liability and the public‑trust doctrine.

According to the Chief Justice, those principles are not abstract ideas but practical levers that push authorities and polluters to prevent harm, restore damaged ecosystems and answer for their actions. He warned that progress without preservation is “a mirage that vanishes in the desert of ecological ruin.”

His remarks come at a time when the Court continues to balance the nation’s development ambitions with the constitutional duty to safeguard the environment – a delicate act, he said, that is essential for the continuity of life itself.