Under Article 32 of the Constitution, can the Supreme Court continue to monitor a State's compliance with earlier environmental directions through successive status reports in a suo motu writ petition?

Yes. Where a court-appointed Committee and Special Investigation Team file successive status reports on industrial contamination of a river system, the Court can continue monitoring compliance, call for scientific plans for treatment and safe disposal of accumulated effluents, and withhold permission for resumption of industrial operations until such treatment is complete.

Constitution of India — Article 32 — Suo motu writ jurisdiction — Environmental monitoring order — Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 — s.33A — Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — ss.272, 326 — Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 — s.33A — Continued judicial monitoring of industrial pollution — Held: Where successive status reports of a court-appointed Committee and Special Investigation Team disclose continuing contamination of a river system by industrial effluents, the Court may continue to monitor compliance and direct State authorities to place scientific plans for treatment and safe disposal of accumulated effluents on record, without permitting resumption of industrial operations pending such treatment. (¶1, 6) Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — ss.272, 326 — Environmental prosecutions — Invocation of graver penal provisions — Held further: Authorities investigating environmental contamination must consider invocation of the graver penal provisions available under the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984, and not confine prosecution to regulatory closure or compensation measures alone, in both pending and future cases of industrial pollution. (¶33) Environmental governance — High Flood Line and river corridor protection — Institutional coordination — Held further: Effective rejuvenation of a river system requires scientific determination and demarcation of the High Flood Line and ecological buffer zones before fresh industrial, commercial or residential development is permitted within the river corridor, and requires an Integrated Coordination Group to secure inter-departmental coordination among the numerous authorities whose functions bear on river restoration. Directions issued accordingly. (¶20, 33)

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