The precautionary principle requires the State to act in advance to prevent environmental harm from taking place, rather than by adopting measures once the harm has taken place. In deciding when to adopt such action, the State cannot hide behind the veil of scientific uncertainty in calculating the exact scientific harm. In H.P. Bus-Stand Management & Development Authority v. Central Empowered Committee, (2021) 4 SCC 309, a three-Judge Bench of this Court emphasised the duty of the State to create conceptual, procedural, and institutional structures to guide environmental regulation in compliance with the “environmental rule of law”. The Court noted that such regulation must arise out of a multi-disciplinary analysis between policy, regulatory and scientific perspectives. The Court held:
“The environmental rule of law, at a certain level, is a facet of the concept of the rule of law. But it includes specific features that are unique to environmental governance, features which are sui generis. The environmental rule of law seeks to create essential tools-conceptual, procedural, and institutional to bring structure to the discourse on environmental protection.
It does so to enhance our understanding of environmental challenges-of how they have been shaped by humanity’s interface with nature in the past, how they continue to be affected by its engagement with nature in the present and the prospects for the future, if we were not to radically alter the course of destruction which humanity’s actions have charted. The environmental rule of law seeks to facilitate a multi-disciplinary analysis of the nature and consequences of carbon footprints and in doing so it brings a shared understanding between science, regulatory decisions, and policy perspectives in the field of environmental protection.”
[Extracted with edits from Pragnesh Shah v. Arun Kumar Sharma, (2022) 11 SCC 493].