The Evening Wrap: Union Environment Ministry proposes amendments to soften penalties for violations

The environment ministry proposes to soften provisions of the Environment Protection Act (EPA) by replacing a clause that provides for imprisoning violators with one that only requires them to pay a fine. This, however, doesn’t apply to violations that cause grave injury or loss of life. The proposed fines, in lieu of imprisonment, are also 5-500 times greater than those currently levied. The Act currently says that violators will be punishable with imprisonment up to five years or with a fine up to ₹1 lakh or with both. Were violations to continue, an additional fine of up to ₹5,000 for every day during which such failure or contravention continues after the conviction would be levied. There’s also a provision for jail terms to extend to seven years. The Environment Ministry in a note this week, laying out the rationale governing the amendments, said that it had received “suggestions” to decriminalise existing provisions of the EPA to weed out “fear of imprisonment for simple violations.” The two major changes proposed are appointing an ‘adjudication officer’ who would decide on a penalty in cases of environmental violations such as reports not being submitted or information not provided when demanded. “However, in case of serious violations which lead to grievous injury or loss of life, they shall be covered under the provision of Indian Penal Code, 1860 read with Section 24 of EP Act,” the document notes. Funds collected as penalties would be accrued in an ‘Environmental Protection Fund’. In case of contraventions of the Act, the penalties could extend to anywhere from ₹5 lakh to ₹5 crore, the proposal notes. The Ministry has sought comments from the public on its proposals until the 21st of July. The removal of prison terms also applies to the Air Act, that is the cornerstone legislation, for dealing with air pollution and the Water Act, which deals with violations to water bodies. An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment found that Indian courts took between 9-33 years to clear a backlog of cases for environmental violations. Beginning 2018, close to 45,000 cases were pending for trial and another 35,000 cases were added in that year. More than 90% cases were pending for trial in five of the seven environment laws. Environmentalist Vikrant Tongad said that the existing clause of imprisonment was to deter violators and not to imprison. The proposed penalties were too meagre and the proposed amendments opened up avenues for “large scale corruption” as the proposed ‘Adjudication Officers’ would be “arbitrary” in their decision making. ‘Misleading’ Rahul Gandhi video: Raipur police accuse Uttar Pradesh police of obstructing arrest of news anchor Rohit Ranjan A team of Raipur police from Chhattisgarh reached Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh on July 5 to arrest TV news anchor Rohit Ranjan in connection with the airing of an alleged “misleading” news over a statement of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, police officials in Raipur said. However, the Raipur police were obstructed by their Uttar Pradesh counterparts who took Ranjan along with them, they claimed. A case was registered against Ranjan and others of the Zee News on Sunday for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups and outraging religious feelings of people based on the complaint of Congress MLA Devendra Yadav, Raipur Senior Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal told PTI. A team was constituted to investigate the case and it was sent to Ghaziabad to arrest the accused, he said. “Complying with the due process of law, the Raipur police team reached the residence of the accused in Ghaziabad this morning for execution of the warrant issued by the competent court in the case. After taking the accused into custody, the team was completing the procedure of arrest. Meanwhile, the local police (Uttar Pradesh police) forcefully took the accused along with them and obstructed the procedure despite the Raipur police showing the warrant,” Agrawal said. MLA Yadav in his complaint alleged that on July 1, a video, in which Rahul Gandhi described those attacking his Wayanad office as children and said he had no ill-will against them, was “mischievously” used by a TV channel to suggest he was forgiving the killers of Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal. The complainant accused the director and chairman of Zee News, its Chief Executive Officer and anchor Rohit Ranjan of conspiring to spread fabricated and fake news against Gandhi in a bid to incite communal riots and disturb social harmony, the police official said. On Tuesday morning, Ranjan posted on his Twitter handle that “without informing the local police, Chhattisgarh Police was standing outside my house to arrest me. Is this legally correct?” The Raipur police in their reply tweeted, “There is no such rule to inform. Still, now they are informed. Police team has shown you the court’s warrant of arrest. You should in fact cooperate, join in the investigation and put your defence in court.” SC observations in Nupur Sharma case unfortunate, unprecedented, say bureaucrats Fifteen retired judges, 77 former bureaucrats and 25 former officers of the armed forces have issued an open statement against the “unfortunate and unprecedented” comments made by a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Surya Kant and J.B. Pardiwala while hearing a plea filed by former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, who is facing criminal action following her alleged televised remarks on Prophet Muhammed. Refusing to entertain her plea to club the multiple first information reports (FIR) registered against her in various States, the Vacation Bench had made scathing oral remarks about Sharma, including that she was “single-handedly responsible” for the violent protests which followed. The open statement said the remarks from the Bench had “sent shockwaves in the country and outside”. “By no stretch these observations, which are not part of the judicial order, can be sanctified on the plank of judicial propriety and fairness. Such outrageous transgressions are without parallel in the annals of judiciary,” the statement said. The observations made had “no connect jurisprudentially with the issue raised in the petition”. The statement goes so far as to say that the court’s observations could be perceived as a “virtual exoneration of the dastardliest beheading at Udaipur in broad daylight”. “In the annals of judiciary, the unfortunate comments have no parallel and are indelible scar on justice system of the largest democracy. Urgent rectification steps are called for as these have potentially serious consequences on democratic values and security of the country,” the statement said. Sharma, by approaching the top court to club the FIRs registered, had only sought to exercise her fundamental right against double jeopardy under Article 20(2) of the Constitution. She was facing separate prosecution for the same cause of action. “The Supreme Court instead of safeguarding the fundamental right of the petitioner (Sharma) forced the petitioner to withdraw and approach the High Court knowing fully well that High Court does not have jurisdiction to transfer or club the FIRs registered in other States,” the statement said. Homeless do not live, merely exist; life envisaged by Constitution unknown to them: Delhi HC Homeless does not live but merely exist and life as envisaged by Article 21 of the Constitution is unknown to them, observed the Delhi High Court, which directed the relocation of five persons who were shifted from one slum site to another at the time of the expansion of the New Delhi Railway Station. Justice C. Hari Shankar, while dealing with a petition filed by five slum dwellers in 2008 against their eviction even from the second site on account of further modernisation for the railway station, observed that the slum dwellers are “hounded by poverty and penury” and do not stay there out of choice. The court said their place of residence is a “last-ditch effort” to secure for themselves the right to life under Article 21 concerning the right to shelter and a roof over their heads. The judge said that law is worth tinsel if the underprivileged cannot get justice and the judiciary is required to remain sensitive to the call of Articles 38 and 39 which obligate the State to secure social, economic, and political justice for all and to strive to minimise inequalities from the society. “The homeless, who people the pavements, the footpaths, and those inaccessible nooks and crannies of the city from where the teeming multitude prefer to avert their eyes, live on the fringes of existence. Indeed, they do not live, but merely exist; for life, with its myriad complexions and contours, envisaged by Article 21 of our Constitution, is unknown to them,” said the court in its order dated July 4. “Even a bare attempt at imagining how they live is, for us, peering out from our gilt-edged cocoons, cathartic. And so we prefer not to do so; as a result, these denizens of the dark continue to eke out their existence, not day by day, but often hour by hour, if not minute by minute,” the court stated. The court said that if the petitioners can demonstrate to the authorities that before moving to the second slum colony on the Lahori Gate side in 2003, they lived in the original slum colony i.e. Shahid Basti jhuggi in Nabi Karim from a date prior to November 30, 1998, they would be entitled to an alternative accommodation under the Relocation Policy of the Ministry of Urban Development. The petitioners would be allotted alternative accommodation in accordance with the Relocation Policy as expeditiously as possible and not later than six months from the date of production of the requisite documents before the Railways, the court stated. In its 32-page order, the court asserted that the judiciary is required to remain sensitive to the call of the Constitution which obligates the State to secure the goal of justice and strive to minimise inequalities in income, status, facilities, opportunities and rejected the respondent’s stand that under the Relocation Policy, relocation is provided for only those slums which were in existence prior to November 30, 1998. “Jhuggi dwellers represent a shifting, nomadic, populace... Hounded by poverty and penury, they have no option but to comply (when shifted elsewhere). Slum-dwellers do not stay in slums out of choice. Their choice of residence is the last ditch effort at securing, for themselves, what the Constitution regards as an inalienable adjunct to the right to life under Article 21, viz. the right to shelter and a roof over their heads. As to whether the roof provides any shelter at all is, of course, another matter altogether,” the court observed. The court said that beneficial statutes and schemes have to be broadly and liberally interpreted to maximise their scope and effect and that “Law is but the instrument, the via media, as it were, to attain the ultimate goal of justice, and law which cannot aspire to justice is, therefore, not worth administering.” “Law, with all its legalese, is worth tinsel if the underprivileged cannot get justice. At the end of the day, our preambular goal is not law, but justice,” it added. Sydney floods impact 50,000 around Australia’s largest city Hundreds of homes have been inundated in and around Australia’s largest city in a flood emergency that was impacting 50,000 people, officials said July 5. Emergency response teams made 100 rescues overnight of people trapped in cars on flooded roads or in inundated homes in the Sydney area, State Emergency Service manager Ashley Sullivan said. Days of torrential rain have caused dams to overflow and waterways to break their banks, bringing a fourth flood emergency in 16 months to parts of the city of five million people. The New South Wales state government declared a disaster across 23 local government areas overnight, activating federal government financial assistance for flood victims. Evacuation orders and warnings to prepare to abandon homes impacted 50,000 people, up from 32,000 on Monday, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said. Parts of southern Sydney had been lashed by more than 20 centimetres (nearly 8 inches) of rain in 24 hours, more than 17% of the city's annual average, Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Jonathan How said. In Brief For India’s Services firms, new business and output rose the at the fastest pace in June since early-2011, as per the survey-based S&P Global India Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), which accelerated from 58.9 in May to 59.2 in June. A reading of over 50 on the index indicates growth over the previous month. With input costs continuing to rise, firms raised selling prices at the fastest rate since July 2017 as they sought to transfer part of their additional cost burdens to clients, with the sharpest uptick in prices being witnessed in Transport, Information and Communication services. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow [logo] The Evening Wrap 05 JULY 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Union Environment Ministry proposes amendments to soften penalties for violations The environment ministry proposes to soften provisions of the Environment Protection Act (EPA) by replacing a clause that provides for imprisoning violators with one that only requires them to pay a fine. This, however, doesn’t apply to violations that cause grave injury or loss of life. The proposed fines, in lieu of imprisonment, are also 5-500 times greater than those currently levied. The Act currently says that violators will be punishable with imprisonment up to five years or with a fine up to ₹1 lakh or with both. Were violations to continue, an additional fine of up to ₹5,000 for every day during which such failure or contravention continues after the conviction would be levied. There’s also a provision for jail terms to extend to seven years. The Environment Ministry in a note this week, laying out the rationale governing the amendments, said that it had received “suggestions” to decriminalise existing provisions of the EPA to weed out “fear of imprisonment for simple violations.” The two major changes proposed are appointing an ‘adjudication officer’ who would decide on a penalty in cases of environmental violations such as reports not being submitted or information not provided when demanded. “However, in case of serious violations which lead to grievous injury or loss of life, they shall be covered under the provision of Indian Penal Code, 1860 read with Section 24 of EP Act,” the document notes. Funds collected as penalties would be accrued in an ‘Environmental Protection Fund’. In case of contraventions of the Act, the penalties could extend to anywhere from ₹5 lakh to ₹5 crore, the proposal notes. The Ministry has sought comments from the public on its proposals until the 21st of July. The removal of prison terms also applies to the Air Act, that is the cornerstone legislation, for dealing with air pollution and the Water Act, which deals with violations to water bodies. An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment found that Indian courts took between 9-33 years to clear a backlog of cases for environmental violations. Beginning 2018, close to 45,000 cases were pending for trial and another 35,000 cases were added in that year. More than 90% cases were pending for trial in five of the seven environment laws. Environmentalist Vikrant Tongad said that the existing clause of imprisonment was to deter violators and not to imprison. The proposed penalties were too meagre and the proposed amendments opened up avenues for “large scale corruption” as the proposed ‘Adjudication Officers’ would be “arbitrary” in their decision making. ‘Misleading’ Rahul Gandhi video: Raipur police accuse Uttar Pradesh police of obstructing arrest of news anchor Rohit Ranjan [A team of Raipur police from Chhattisgarh reached Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh]( July 5 to arrest TV news anchor Rohit Ranjan in connection with the airing of an alleged “misleading” news over a statement of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, police officials in Raipur said. However, the Raipur police were obstructed by their Uttar Pradesh counterparts who took Ranjan along with them, they claimed. A case was registered against Ranjan and others of the Zee News on Sunday for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups and outraging religious feelings of people based on the complaint of Congress MLA Devendra Yadav, Raipur Senior Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal told PTI. [ Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. File] A team was constituted to investigate the case and it was sent to Ghaziabad to arrest the accused, he said. “Complying with the due process of law, the Raipur police team reached the residence of the accused in Ghaziabad this morning for execution of the warrant issued by the competent court in the case. After taking the accused into custody, the team was completing the procedure of arrest. Meanwhile, the local police (Uttar Pradesh police) forcefully took the accused along with them and obstructed the procedure despite the Raipur police showing the warrant,” Agrawal said. MLA Yadav in his complaint alleged that on July 1, a video, in which Rahul Gandhi described those attacking his Wayanad office as children and said he had no ill-will against them, was “mischievously” used by a TV channel to suggest he was forgiving the killers of Udaipur tailor Kanhaiya Lal. The complainant accused the director and chairman of Zee News, its Chief Executive Officer and anchor Rohit Ranjan of conspiring to spread fabricated and fake news against Gandhi in a bid to incite communal riots and disturb social harmony, the police official said. On Tuesday morning, Ranjan posted on his Twitter handle that “without informing the local police, Chhattisgarh Police was standing outside my house to arrest me. Is this legally correct?” The Raipur police in their reply tweeted, “There is no such rule to inform. Still, now they are informed. Police team has shown you the court’s warrant of arrest. You should in fact cooperate, join in the investigation and put your defence in court.” SC observations in Nupur Sharma case unfortunate, unprecedented, say bureaucrats [Fifteen retired judges, 77 former bureaucrats and 25 former officers of the armed forces have issued an open statement]( against the “unfortunate and unprecedented” comments made by a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Surya Kant and J.B. Pardiwala while hearing a plea filed by former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, who is facing criminal action following her alleged televised remarks on Prophet Muhammed. Refusing to entertain her plea to club the multiple first information reports (FIR) registered against her in various States, the Vacation Bench had made scathing oral remarks about Sharma, including that she was “single-handedly responsible” for the violent protests which followed. The open statement said the remarks from the Bench had “sent shockwaves in the country and outside”. [File photo of Nupur Sharma. ] “By no stretch these observations, which are not part of the judicial order, can be sanctified on the plank of judicial propriety and fairness. Such outrageous transgressions are without parallel in the annals of judiciary,” the statement said. The observations made had “no connect jurisprudentially with the issue raised in the petition”. The statement goes so far as to say that the court’s observations could be perceived as a “virtual exoneration of the dastardliest beheading at Udaipur in broad daylight”. “In the annals of judiciary, the unfortunate comments have no parallel and are indelible scar on justice system of the largest democracy. Urgent rectification steps are called for as these have potentially serious consequences on democratic values and security of the country,” the statement said. Sharma, by approaching the top court to club the FIRs registered, had only sought to exercise her fundamental right against double jeopardy under Article 20(2) of the Constitution. She was facing separate prosecution for the same cause of action. “The Supreme Court instead of safeguarding the fundamental right of the petitioner (Sharma) forced the petitioner to withdraw and approach the High Court knowing fully well that High Court does not have jurisdiction to transfer or club the FIRs registered in other States,” the statement said. Homeless do not live, merely exist; life envisaged by Constitution unknown to them: Delhi HC [Homeless does not live but merely exist and life as envisaged by Article 21 of the Constitution]( is unknown to them, observed the Delhi High Court, which directed the relocation of five persons who were shifted from one slum site to another at the time of the expansion of the New Delhi Railway Station. Justice C. Hari Shankar, while dealing with a petition filed by five slum dwellers in 2008 against their eviction even from the second site on account of further modernisation for the railway station, observed that the slum dwellers are “hounded by poverty and penury” and do not stay there out of choice. The court said their place of residence is a “last-ditch effort” to secure for themselves the right to life under Article 21 concerning the right to shelter and a roof over their heads. The judge said that law is worth tinsel if the underprivileged cannot get justice and the judiciary is required to remain sensitive to the call of Articles 38 and 39 which obligate the State to secure social, economic, and political justice for all and to strive to minimise inequalities from the society. “The homeless, who people the pavements, the footpaths, and those inaccessible nooks and crannies of the city from where the teeming multitude prefer to avert their eyes, live on the fringes of existence. Indeed, they do not live, but merely exist; for life, with its myriad complexions and contours, envisaged by Article 21 of our Constitution, is unknown to them,” said the court in its order dated July 4. “Even a bare attempt at imagining how they live is, for us, peering out from our gilt-edged cocoons, cathartic. And so we prefer not to do so; as a result, these denizens of the dark continue to eke out their existence, not day by day, but often hour by hour, if not minute by minute,” the court stated. The court said that if the petitioners can demonstrate to the authorities that before moving to the second slum colony on the Lahori Gate side in 2003, they lived in the original slum colony i.e. Shahid Basti jhuggi in Nabi Karim from a date prior to November 30, 1998, they would be entitled to an alternative accommodation under the Relocation Policy of the Ministry of Urban Development. The petitioners would be allotted alternative accommodation in accordance with the Relocation Policy as expeditiously as possible and not later than six months from the date of production of the requisite documents before the Railways, the court stated. In its 32-page order, the court asserted that the judiciary is required to remain sensitive to the call of the Constitution which obligates the State to secure the goal of justice and strive to minimise inequalities in income, status, facilities, opportunities and rejected the respondent’s stand that under the Relocation Policy, relocation is provided for only those slums which were in existence prior to November 30, 1998. “Jhuggi dwellers represent a shifting, nomadic, populace... Hounded by poverty and penury, they have no option but to comply (when shifted elsewhere). Slum-dwellers do not stay in slums out of choice. Their choice of residence is the last ditch effort at securing, for themselves, what the Constitution regards as an inalienable adjunct to the right to life under Article 21, viz. the right to shelter and a roof over their heads. As to whether the roof provides any shelter at all is, of course, another matter altogether,” the court observed. The court said that beneficial statutes and schemes have to be broadly and liberally interpreted to maximise their scope and effect and that “Law is but the instrument, the via media, as it were, to attain the ultimate goal of justice, and law which cannot aspire to justice is, therefore, not worth administering.” “Law, with all its legalese, is worth tinsel if the underprivileged cannot get justice. At the end of the day, our preambular goal is not law, but justice,” it added. Sydney floods impact 50,000 around Australia’s largest city [Hundreds of homes have been inundated in and around Australia’s largest city in a flood emergency]( that was impacting 50,000 people, officials said July 5. Emergency response teams made 100 rescues overnight of people trapped in cars on flooded roads or in inundated homes in the Sydney area, State Emergency Service manager Ashley Sullivan said. Days of torrential rain have caused dams to overflow and waterways to break their banks, bringing a fourth flood emergency in 16 months to parts of the city of five million people. The New South Wales state government declared a disaster across 23 local government areas overnight, activating federal government financial assistance for flood victims. Evacuation orders and warnings to prepare to abandon homes impacted 50,000 people, up from 32,000 on Monday, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said. Parts of southern Sydney had been lashed by more than 20 centimetres (nearly 8 inches) of rain in 24 hours, more than 17% of the city's annual average, Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Jonathan How said. In Brief For India’s Services firms, new business and output rose the at the fastest pace in June since early-2011, as per the survey-based S&P Global India Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), which accelerated from 58.9 in May to 59.2 in June. A reading of over 50 on the index indicates growth over the previous month. With input costs continuing to rise, firms raised selling prices at the fastest rate since July 2017 as they sought to transfer part of their additional cost burdens to clients, with the sharpest uptick in prices being witnessed in Transport, Information and Communication services. 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