Corporate Environmental Liability In India: Law Vs Practice
Eestaa Patnaik, KIIT School of Law, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
ABSTRACT
India's environmental regulations have taken an absolute liability stance. However, the enforcement of these laws is lagging. As a result of the change in focus from criminal jail time to administrative fines during the period 2024-2026, a “Pay and Pollute” culture developed in which companies treat fines as just another cost of doing business. This is made worse by a “Recovery Paralysis”, where overwhelmed District Collectors are finding it difficult to collect fines, thus victims such as those from the LG Polymers incident are getting stuck in the bureaucracy even long after the agreements are made.
On the other hand, corporations are employing “procedural warfare” to delay justice in the High Courts. In order to resolve this, we should stop depending on the slow moving bureaucratic hierarchies and bring in these reforms: authorize pollution boards to directly freeze bank accounts and require environmental insurance for high risk sectors, otherwise, India will continue to be a nation of great judicial decisions that are nevertheless overshadowed by a polluted reality.
Keywords: Absolute Liability, Recovery Paralysis, Pay and Pollute, Procedural Warfare, Environmental Insurance
