Rajiv Sharma, J.

1. In sequel to the directions issued by this Court, Mr. Praveen Kumar, Director, National Mission for Clean Ganga, along with Mr. Ishwar Singh, Legal Advisor, NAMAMI Gange Project, have appeared.

2. Mr. Vinod Singhal, Member Secretary Uttarakhand Environmental Protection & Control Board is also present in person. The Court has a long interaction with him. He apprised the Court that few establishments have been sealed. However, the Court asked him why the Teams who go for sealing the establishments issue the fresh notice after issuance of Closure Notices. He could not answer it satisfactorily. There is no such provision for issuing notice over and time again once the closure notice has been issued. This practice is deprecated and be stopped forthwith.

3. The personal appearance of the Member Secretary of the State Board is dispensed with.

4. The present miscellaneous application (CLMA 3003/17) has been filed by the petitioner for declaring the Himalayas, Glaciers, Streams, Water Bodies etc. as legal entities as juristic persons at par with pious rivers Ganga and Yamuna.

5. In normal circumstances, we would not have permitted the petitioner to file an application after the disposal of petition but since the matter was kept alive on the principle of ‘continuous mandamus’ and for the compliance of the judgment, we have entertained this application in the larger public interest and to avoid further litigation . Moreover, the petition was filed as a public interest litigation.

6. It is settled law that the principles of pleadings are liberal in the public interest litigations and the technicalities should be eschewed.

7. Since, only pure question of law is involved, the parties have sought no time to file the reply. However, the parties were heard at length.

8. Their Lordships of Hon. Supreme Court in (1988) 4 SCC 226 in the case of ‘Sheela Barse v. Union of India & others’ have held that in a public interest litigation, unlike traditional dispute resolution mechanism, there is no determination of adjudication of individual rights. Their Lordships have held as under: -

“11. The grievance is that the final disposal of the main petition was not expeditiously done. In a public interest litigation, unlike traditional dispute resolution mechanism, there is no determination or adjudication of individual rights. While in the ordinary conventional adjudications the party structure is merely bi-polar and the controversy pertains to the determination of the legal consequences of past events and the remedy is essentially linked to and limited by the logic of the array of the parties, in a public interest action the proceedings cut across and transcend these traditional forms and inhibitions. The compulsion for the judicial innovation of the technique of a public interest action is the constitutional promise of a social and economic transformation to usher in an egalitarian social order and a welfare State. Effective solutions to the problems peculiar to this transformation are not available in the traditional judicial system. The proceedings in a public interest litigation are, therefore, intended to vindicate and effectuate the public interest by prevention of violation of the rights, constitutional or statutory, of sizeable segments of the society, which owing to poverty, ignorance, social and economic disadvantages cannot themselves assert - and quite often not even aware of - those rights. The technique of public interest litigation serves to provide an effective remedy to enforce these group rights and interests. In order that these public causes are brought before the courts, the procedural techniques judicially innovated specially for the public interest action recognises the concomitant need to lower the locus standi thresholds so as to enable public-minded citizens or social action groups to act as conduits between these classes of persons of inherence and the forum for the assertion and enforcement of their rights.