Environmental Federalism In India: Tensions Between Central And State Autonomy
- IJLLR Journal
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
Pankhuri Mishra, LL.M. (Environment and Natural Resources Law), TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi
ABSTRACT:
At the time of making of the Indian Constitution, one of the primary debates that came up before the Constituent Assembly was the distribution of powers between the centre and the states. While defining ‘federalism’ in context of India, one can easily ascertain that it has not been strictly adopted in our constitution. In fact, India follows ‘quasi federalism’ where there is division of powers but the centre has been given an upper hand in issues of national importance. This is the reason why the term ‘federal’ has not been explicitly mentioned anywhere in the Constitution and India has been referred to as a ‘Union of States’ As remarked by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, “the political system adopted in the Constitution could be both unitary as well as federal according to the requirement of time and circumstances.”Federalist approach embodies a decentralised structure. This can be found in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution which provides subject wise division of powers between the Centre and the States.
At the time of India’s independence and forming of the Constitution, environmental issues were nowhere into the picture hence no provisions related to environment could be found therein. It was during the 1970s after the United Nations Conference on Human Environment took place in Stockholm that the concern for environment increased globally all around the world. India was also a party to this convention and affected by its mandate. The following research paper seeks to analyse how environmental concerns are dealt in India ‘s federal structure of governance and the challenges posed by the same.
