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Director General (Road Development), NHAI v. Aam Aadmi Lokmanch

Civil Appeal · 2020 INSC 452Decided 14 Jul 2020
Civil Appeal No. 6932 of 2015
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice S. Ravindra Bhat · Justice V. Ramasubramanian

Background

In 2013, a mother and daughter died on a Maharashtra national highway when a sudden surge of water and debris, caused by illegal, unregulated hill-cutting and mineral extraction near the road, swept their car away. An NGO, Aam Aadmi Lokmanch, approached the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which found the land licensee and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) jointly responsible for failing to prevent the illegal hill-cutting despite having been warned, and ordered them to pay compensation to the victims' family and a separate sum for environmental restoration. The NGT also issued a sweeping direction banning construction within 100 feet of any hill statewide, which the Maharashtra government then implemented through a planning notification; this wider notification was separately challenged by other parties and upheld by the Bombay High Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the NGT's finding that NHAI and the licensee were jointly liable to pay compensation (Rs. 15 lakh, as an interim/prima facie measure, with final apportionment of liability to be independently decided in a revived civil suit) and the separate Rs. 10 lakh restitution order for environmental restoration, since NHAI had ignored its own warnings about the dangerous hill-cutting for roughly two years before the fatal incident. However, the Court struck down the NGT's broader direction banning construction near all hills statewide, along with the state government's follow-up notification implementing it, holding it was issued without any scientific or expert basis, without even defining what counted as a "hill," and amounted to an arbitrary, blanket change to regional development plans. The appeals were disposed of accordingly, with the compensation directions upheld and the broader construction ban quashed.

Lesson Learnt

Government bodies and licensees can be held financially responsible for foreseeable environmental disasters they fail to prevent despite advance warning, but even an environmental tribunal's regulatory directions must be backed by proper expert evidence and reasoning: a broad, undefined ban imposed without that foundation can itself be struck down as arbitrary.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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