Published Paper Details:

The Judiciary in India has earned the reputation as an environmentalist due to the various decisions which have been credited with changing the whole environmental protection discourse in India. The Courts have not only been helpful in limiting the environmental degradation but they have also been instrumental in preventing the reversible damage to the ecology. However, the approach of the Court has been diminishing over the last few years and it has reached to a point where the initial gains made by the Courts activism are being eroded gradually. Apart from this there is the persistent issue of the fixation of the Court with taking up the matters which garner the maximum number of headlines in the news. There is some proof for the criticism of the Court for its manifest class bias while disposing off the environmental matters where the underprivileged sections of the society are left to fend for themselves while the concerns of the affluent sections of the society are passed off as the vision of the Court for conservation. In this paper the author has tried to analyse the growth and development along with the discontents in the environmental jurisprudence of the Court. Certain course correction measures are also suggested by the author which will help in restoring the strong role being played by the Court in environment protection.