New Delhi: More than four decades after a public interest litigation on air pollution was filed, Supreme Court on Thursday ended one of the most significant environmental cases in the country’s legal history. Filed by lawyer MC Mehta in 1985, when environmental regulation in the country was still in its early stages, the petition led the court over the years to issue a series of directions aimed at reducing pollution in Delhi-NCR.His writ was initially on Delhi’s vehicular pollution, but other pollution issues were included later. Among the most impactful measures were orders mandating the shift of the city’s public transport fleet to CNG; directing the closure or relocation of thousands of polluting industries; phasing out leaded petrol; and banning the use of heavily polluting fuels. It also led to the construction of Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways to bypass non-Delhi-bound traffic and the imposition of the environment compensation charge.The petition also sought Graded Response Action Plan, an emergency measure, and a comprehensive clean action plan for a long-term solution. It led to the formulation of Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority, which dealt with pollution in Delhi-NCR from 1998 to 2021. Supreme Court also asked municipal wards to make parking area management plans.Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at Centre for Science and Environment, said the MC Mehta case fundamentally re-engineered Delhi’s air quality governance by establishing an environmental jurisprudence. “By utilising the constitutional right to life to break industrial resistance, this legal crusade forced a sweeping, multi-sectoral clean energy transition across the capital,” she said. “This minimised the use of dirty fuels by shutting down coal power plants, shifting all legal industries to natural gas, and cutting the transport sector’s diesel consumption by half. It bent the pollution curve,” she said. Activist Bhavreen Kandhari, who filed an impleadment application in 2024 making her a petitioner alongside Mehta, said the case fundamentally constitutionalised environmental protection in India. “Supreme Court expanded Article 21 to recognise the right to a pollution-free environment and embedded principles like absolute liability, polluter-pays rule and the precautionary principle into Indian law.” Senior advocate Raj Panjwani said that banning the entry of non-destined vehicles might act as a deterrent in the anti-pollution fight.
