Individuals have a right to a healthy environment, intricately linked to their rights to life and social equity, necessitating a balance between environmental conservation and development commitments.

JUDGMENT :

Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, CJI.

1. The jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked for protecting the Great Indian Bustard¹[“GIB”] and the Lesser Florican, both of whom are on the verge of extinction. Given the importance of the issue at hand, a brief background of various aspects which pertain to the matter are discussed below.

A. The Great Indian Bustard

2. The GIB (the scientific name of which is ardeotis nigriceps) is native to southern and western India. It typically occupies grasslands or arid regions. The State of Rajasthan is home to a majority of the current population. With time, the country has seen a rapid and steady decline in the population of the GIB. As of 2018, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN as it is popularly known, classified the GIB as a ‘critically endangered’ species. In IUCN’s system of classification, only two categories indicate a graver threat to a particular species – ‘extinct in the wild’ and ‘extinct’. The GIB has been classified as a critically endangered species from 2011 until the most recent assessment in 2018. From 1994 to 2008, it was classified as ‘endangered’ and in 1988, it was labelled ‘threatened’. IUCN notes the justification for its classification of the GIB as a critically endangered species in the following terms:²[IUCN Red List, ‘Great Indian Bustard’ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22691932/134188105#population]

“This species is listed as Critically Endangered because it has an extremely small population that has undergone an extremely rapid decline owing to a multitude of threats including habitat loss and degradation, hunting and direct disturbance. It now requires an urgent acceleration in targeted conservation actions in order to prevent it from becoming functionally extinct within a few decades.”

3. The Rajasthan government estimated that only about 125 GIBs were present in the year 2013³[Government of Rajasthan, Forest Department, ‘Project Great Indian Bustard’ https://forest.rajasthan.gov.in/content/raj/forest/en/footernav/department-wings/project-great-indian-bustard.html] while IUCN placed the number of mature GIBs between 50 and 249.⁴[IUCN Red List (n 2).] There are significant factors bearing upon the dwindling numbers and low rate of reproduction of the existing population of these species. Pollution, climate change, predators and competition with invasive species are among the many threats that exacerbate the challenges faced by these vulnerable species. The attrition of the existing population of these endangered birds has been partly attributed to overhead transmission lines. GIBs usually lay a single egg which has an incubation period of approximately one month. The GIBs nest on open ground or in cavities in the soil. Consequently, their eggs are also laid and incubated on the ground. The eggs are therefore at risk of being preyed upon by local predators including mongooses, monitor lizards, and other birds. Cows may also trample on or crush the eggs while grazing in the grasslands. The loss of habitat is also a serious concern. As humans have expanded their settlements and economic activities into the grasslands, the natural habitat of the GIB has diminished. The expansion of human population and accompanying activities has also resulted in the fragmentation of the GIB’s habitat. The expansion of infrastructure such as roads, mining and farming activities ha