Environmental Jurisprudence and the Supreme Court: Litigation, Interpretation, Implementation by Geetanjoy Sahu (Orient BlackSwan, TISS), 2014; pp xviii + 323, price not indicated.
One stated agenda of the new government is a commitment to addressing business concerns by smoothening the path to environmental clearances for projects and lowering transaction costs. The Supreme Court had earlier directed the central government to set up an environmental regulator at the state and at the centre. But do national and state regulators provide an effective alternative to the current institutional structure?
The Ministry of Environment and Forests' initiative to set up an independent environmental regulator is a positive one and acknowledges the problems in the current system of regulations. Yet, a perusal of the proposal suggests that it has a number of limitations and therefore has to be rejected. But it is equally important that viable alternatives to the proposed agency are actively constructed.
