The Supreme Court froze the status of “legal persons” accorded to rivers Ganga and Yamuna by the Uttarakhand High Court in March 2017.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and D.Y. Chandrachud stayed the High Court verdict which held that the rights of the two major rivers “shall be equivalent to the rights of human beings and the injury/harm caused to these bodies shall be treated as harm/injury caused to the human beings.”
The High Court had invoked its jurisdiction as the parens patriae of the rivers while declaring the “glaciers including Gangotri and Yamunotri, rivers, streams, rivulets, lakes, air, meadows, dales, jungles, forests wetlands, grasslands, springs and waterfalls, legal entity/ legal person/juristic person/juridical person/ moral person/artificial person having the status of a legal person, with all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person, in order to preserve and conserve them.”
The stay came on a petition filed by Haridwar resident Mohammad Salim over mining and stone crushing along the banks of the Ganga.
The High Court had ordered the Director, Namami Gange project, for cleaning and rejuvenating the river, the Chief Secretary and the Advocate General of Uttarakhand to act as “legal parents” of the holy rivers and work as a human face to protect, conserve and preserve them and their tributaries.
These officers, the High Court had directed, would be bound to “uphold the status” of the two rivers and also promote their “health and well-being.” It had also directed the government to form a Ganga Management Board as per a December 2016 order.
Published - July 07, 2017 10:06 pm IST
