Authored By: Semparuthi Ravichandran
Government Law College,Chengalpattu
Abstract
The Supreme Court of India’s landmark judgment in M.K. Ranjitsinh & Others v. Union of India (2024) has, for the first time explicitly, recognised the right of Indian citizens to be free from the adverse effects of climate change as a fundamental right under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. This article traces the constitutional foundations and judicial trajectory that led to this recognition, examines the implications of the judgment for India’s domestic climate governance framework, situates the decision in its international and comparative context, and critically evaluates the challenges of enforcing climate rights in a constitutional democracy. The article argues that while the judgment represents a watershed development in Indian constitutional law, its transformative potential can only be realised through complementary legislative action and strengthened institutional capacity.
Introduction
M.K. Ranjitsinh & Others v. Union of India recognised—for the first time explicitly—the right of citizens to be free from the adverse effects of climate change as a fundamental right protected under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. This pronouncement, remarkable both for its constitutional scope and its ecological specificity, represents the culmination of decades of progressive environmental jurisprudence in India and signals a new chapter in the relationship between constitutional rights and environmental obligations.
This article examines the constitutional foundations of this right, traces the judicial trajectory that led to its recognition, analyses the implications of the Ranjitsinh judgment, and evaluates India’s legal framework for addressing climate change in light of its international commitments. The article further examines the challenges of translating constitutional recognition into enforceable obligations, and considers the scope for development of climate constitutionalism in India going forward.
Constitutional Foundations of the Environmental Right
The Constitution of India does not expressly enumerate a right to a clean or healthy environment. However, through a series of transformative judicial interpretations, the Supreme Court has read such a right into the broad and purposive language of Article 21, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. The reasoning is elegant in its simplicity: a life rendered unliveable by environmental degradation—unbreathable air, undrinkable water, or an uninhabitable climate—is not a life protected by the Constitution.
Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar (1991), where the Supreme Court held that the right to live includes the right to the enjoyment of pollution-free water and air for the full enjoyment of life. This foundation was consolidated in Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum v. Union of India (1996), where the Court incorporated the principles of sustainable development and the precautionary principle into Indian law, treating them as part of the domestic legal order by virtue of Articles 48A and 51A(g) of the Constitution. Article 48A directs the state to protect and improve the environment, while Article 51A(g) casts a fundamental duty on citizens to protect forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife. Though neither provision is directly justiciable—being a Directive Principle and a Fundamental Duty respectively—the Supreme Court has consistently used them as interpretive tools to reinforce the environmental content of Article 21.
III. From Pollution Control to Climate Rights: The Judicial Trajectory
M.C. Mehta v. Union of India series of cases (beginning in 1987), the Supreme Court established the ‘absolute liability’ principle for hazardous activities and the ‘polluter pays’ doctrine, holding industries and municipal authorities accountable for environmental degradation. The Court’s interventionist approach demonstrated a willingness to use constitutional writ jurisdiction creatively to protect environmental rights.
Godavarman litigation (1995 onwards), the Supreme Court assumed an unprecedented supervisory role over forest conservation in India, issuing ongoing directions that governed the day-to-day administration of forests across the country. This was complemented, institutionally, by the establishment of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) under the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, which provided a specialised forum for the adjudication of environmental disputes, bringing scientific and technical expertise to bear on complex ecological questions.
Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017), which recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 through a process of purposive constitutional interpretation. The methodology of Puttaswamy—which derived an unenumerated fundamental right from the logic and purpose of Article 21—provided the jurisprudential template for the Ranjitsinh judgment. If the right to privacy could be constitutionally recognised without express textual mandate, so too could the right against the adverse effects of climate change.
The Ranjitsinh Judgment: A Constitutional Watershed
M.K. Ranjitsinh & Others v. Union of India originated in a petition for the protection of the Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps) and the Lesser Florican, two critically endangered bird species whose habitat in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan was threatened by overhead power transmission lines. The Union of India argued before the Supreme Court that insisting on underground cables in critical habitat areas would compromise India’s ability to harness solar and wind energy in the region—a key component of its commitments under the Paris Agreement to achieve 50% of cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
The Supreme Court, in a judgment authored by the then Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, declined to frame the question as a binary choice between biodiversity conservation and renewable energy. Instead, the Court articulated a constitutional framework for climate rights, recognising that both imperatives were grounded in the same constitutional guarantee of life and dignity.
The constitutional pronouncement in Ranjitsinh was of the first order. The Court held:
“The right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution must be interpreted to include the right of citizens to be free from the adverse effects of climate change. Climate change, caused by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, poses existential risks to life, health, and wellbeing. A state that fails to take adequate measures to mitigate and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change fails in its obligations under Article 21.”
For the first time, the Supreme Court explicitly linked climate change to the fundamental rights guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution, elevating it from a policy matter within the exclusive domain of the executive to a constitutional obligation enforceable through writ jurisdiction. The Court further held that the state’s failure to protect citizens from the disproportionate impacts of climate change—which fall most heavily on the poorest and most vulnerable—also violated the equal protection guarantee of Article 14. This equality dimension of climate rights is particularly significant in the Indian context, where the burdens of climate change are borne most acutely by communities that have contributed least to global greenhouse gas emissions.
India’s International Climate Commitments and Domestic Law
in October 2016, committing to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% from 2005 levels by 2030, to achieve approximately 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030, and to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover. The domestic legislative framework for climate action includes the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; the Energy Conservation Act, 2001 (as amended in 2022); and the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). However, India notably lacks comprehensive climate legislation comparable to the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Act, 2008, which establishes binding carbon budgets and an independent Climate Change Committee of the Constitution directs the state to foster respect for international law and treaty obligations. The Supreme Court has held in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan that international conventions not inconsistent with fundamental rights may be read into the constitutional framework through Articles 14 and 21. The Ranjitsinh judgment went further, treating India’s Paris Agreement obligations as constitutional obligations enforceable through writ jurisdiction—a development that significantly elevates the domestic legal status of India’s international climate commitments and signals that the judiciary will hold the state accountable for their fulfilment.
Comparative Perspectives: Climate Constitutionalism in Global Context
Urgenda Foundation v. State of the Netherlands (2019) upheld a judicial order requiring the Dutch government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by 2020, grounding its reasoning in the European Convention on Human Rights. In Pakistan, the Lahore High Court in Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan (2015) recognised climate change as a threat to the constitutional rights to life and dignity, citing provisions directly analogous to India’s Articles 14 and 21.
Juliana v. United States litigation sought to establish a constitutional right to a stable climate system, though the Ninth Circuit dismissed the suit on justiciability grounds in 2020. Colombia’s Supreme Court in 2018 took a more radical step, recognising the Colombian Amazon as a ‘subject of rights’ in a climate case brought on behalf of future generations. These developments, taken together, illustrate a convergent jurisprudential movement across jurisdictions—treating climate protection not as discretionary governance but as a justiciable constitutional obligation—within which the Ranjitsinh judgment situates India as a significant participant.
VII. Critical Analysis: Challenges and Limitations
The Ranjitsinh judgment is a watershed development, but it raises important questions that must be honestly confronted. First, climate policy involves complex trade-offs between competing values—economic development, energy security, biodiversity conservation, and intergenerational equity—that are typically within the domain of the political branches of government. When courts define the constitutional dimensions of these trade-offs, they risk substituting judicial preferences for democratic deliberation, potentially generating accountability deficits of their own.
Second, the recognition of a constitutional right against adverse effects of climate change leaves several questions of justiciability unresolved: who may bring such a claim, against whom, on what standard, and with what remedies? The Ranjitsinh judgment, while establishing the existence of the right, does not fully answer these questions, leaving a significant jurisprudential agenda for future courts. This indeterminacy could result in inconsistent outcomes at the trial and High Court levels, undermining the rule-of-law benefits that constitutional recognition was intended to provide.
Third, there is a genuine risk that climate constitutionalism may be instrumentalised strategically. Opponents of renewable energy projects—the very infrastructure needed to meet India’s climate commitments—might invoke the constitutional right against adverse environmental effects to obstruct development. Courts will need to develop doctrines capable of distinguishing genuine climate rights claims from tactical uses of environmental constitutionalism, in order to prevent the right from being weaponised against the policy goals it was designed to protect.
Despite these limitations, the recognition of climate rights as constitutional rights is necessary and overdue. Climate change is simultaneously an environmental problem, a human rights problem, an equality problem, and a problem of intergenerational justice. By bringing it within the ambit of Part III fundamental rights, the Supreme Court has placed climate justice where it constitutionally belongs—at the heart of India’s legal order, enforceable against the state.
VIII. Conclusion
M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India is a landmark moment in India’s constitutional history. It is the culmination of a decades-long process of progressive environmental jurisprudence—from the early right-to-clean-environment decisions, through the development of the absolute liability and precautionary principles, to the overarching constitutional recognition of climate rights. The judgment challenges the state to treat climate obligations not as discretionary policy preferences but as constitutional imperatives.
The path ahead is demanding. India requires comprehensive climate legislation establishing binding sectoral emissions targets, transparent monitoring mechanisms, and justiciable enforcement provisions. It requires strengthened environmental governance institutions capable of translating constitutional obligations into administrative reality. And it requires climate policies that are genuinely just and inclusive—protecting those citizens who bear the greatest burdens of a crisis they did not cause.
The Ranjitsinh judgment has placed India on a course towards constitutional climate accountability. Its ultimate significance will not be measured by its doctrinal elegance alone, but by whether it catalyses real-world action to protect the lives, livelihoods, and futures of India’s people in the face of the defining legal and human challenge of our era.
Reference(S):
M.K. Ranjitsinh & Others v. Union of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No. 838 of 2019 (India), Apr. 21, 2024.
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