Government to Amend the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
- Recently MoEFCC proposed amendments to Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 to scale down punishment for some environmental violations.
Proposed amendments
- Amendments have been proposed in four legislations:
- The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
- Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974
- Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and
- Public Liability Insurance (PLI) Act, 1991.
- These are environmental laws that led to the creation of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)
- It can take action against individuals and corporate bodies who pollute air, water and land.
- It can either shut down a polluting industrial body or imprison executives of an organisation found to be environmental violators.
- Environment Ministry proposes to modify provisions of Environment Protection Act (EPA), by replacing imprisonment clauses with ones that only require violators to pay a fine.
- It doesn’t apply to violations that cause grave injury or loss of life.
How will violators be punished?
- Proposed changes include appointment of an ‘adjudication officer’.
- To decide penalty in cases of environmental violations
- Funds collected as penalties would be accrued in an “Environmental Protection Fund.”
- In case of contraventions of the Act, penalties could extend to anywhere from five lakh to five crores.
- Clause on provision of jail term for first default has been sought to be removed.
Do these amendments defang environmental laws?
- Current laws have had limited effectiveness.
- Indian courts took between 9-33 years to clear backlog of cases for environmental violations.
- In most cases, it is impossible to hold a specific individual in an organisation responsible for a specific crime given the burden of proof required.
- New amendments have made certain categories of crimes ‘civil crimes’ making it easier to hold organisations accountable.
- Criticism: Proposed penalties are meagre and open avenues for corruption.