Environment Court sitting idle

The procedure is, one has to file a written complaint about the violation of law to the environment department upon which an inquiry is instituted by it. Then the matter is taken to the court on the basis of its merit. But thanks to 'investigation' by three inspectors, only a handful number of cases have been filed. Therefore the little but more than a year old environment court in the capital has remained under-used. What baffles us is, why did the Department of Environment (DoE) failed to file so few cases when there had been more than 1200 complaints of gross violation of the environmental law? Are we supposed to take it for granted that almost all of those complaints were baseless?

We have it on good authority that some dishonest officials of the environment department are mainly responsible for fewer complaints making it to the court. The whole purpose of establishing a separate judicial set-up to protect our surroundings has got lost. It's now obvious that only increasing public awareness on the issue can bring about any significant change. We think that the legal side of the awareness is also necessary in this case; NGOs can take a lead in this matter. At the same time, there should be more public interest litigation to safeguard our surroundings. The highest court has so given suo moto rulings on environment protection, but they don't seem to be enough. It's high time we all got together and made our environment safe not for just ourselves but also for our future generations.

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