LAW OF TORT AND ENVIRONMENT

 A common law tort action against the polluter is one of the major and among the
oldest of the legal remedies to abate pollution
 Majority of environment pollution cases of tort in India fall under four major
categories –Nuisance, Negligence, Strict liability and Trespass
 SC added a new category – Absolute Liability
 A plaintiff in a tort action may sue for damages or an injunction or both
 Damages are pecuniary compensation
 Substantial (Restitution)
 Exemplary (to punish the defendant)

Injunction
 In practice, injunctive relief are more effective in abating pollution
 A judicial process where a person who has infringed or is about to infringe the rights
of another is restrained from pursuing such acts
 Discretion of the Court
 Two Types
 Temporary- To maintain the state of things at a given date until trial on merits
(regulated by Sec. 94& 95 as well as Order 39 CPC)
 Perpetual- Permanently restrains the defendant from doing the Act complained of
on merit. (regulated by Section 37-42 of Specific Relief Act, 1963)

Nuisance
 Nuisance is concerned with unlawful interference with the plaintiff’s use or
enjoyment of land
 It means anything which annoys, hurts or that which is offensive
 for an interference to be an actionable nuisance the conduct of the defendant must
be unreasonable
 Must not be momentary but must continue for some time
 acts interfering with the comfort, health or safety are covered under nuisance
 The interference may be due to smell, noise, fumes, gas, heat, smoke, germs,
vibrations, etc.
  Nuisance may be public or private in nature
 A public nuisance is an unreasonable interference with a right common to the
general public
 causing offensive smells, intolerable noises, dust, vibrations, collection of filth that
affects the health or habitability in a locality
 Public nuisance is both a tort and crime
 Remedies-
 A criminal prosecution under Sec 268 IPC
 A criminal proceeding before a magistrate under section 133-143 CrPC
 A civil action by the Advocate General or by two or more members of the public with
the permission of the court under Section 91 CPC

 J.C. Galstaun v. Dunia Lal Seal, (1905)9 CWN 612

 Suit for a perpetual injunction to abate a nuisance and for damages
 Plaintiff had a garden house in the Maniktollah municipality, Calcutta
 Defendant had a shellac factory situated 200-300 yards away
 plaintiff complained that the factory is discharging the refuse-liquid into a Municipal
drain that passes along the plaintiff‟s garden
 He alleged that the liquid is foul-smelling and noxious to the health of the
neighbourhood
 it has damaged him in health, comfort, market value of his garden property
 The defendant denied that it was noxious or that it had injuriously effected the
plaintiff‟s property
 He said that his factory has been licensed by the government and has been
conducting the manufacturing in a lawful manner
 Defendant told in the court that his responsibility is only till the time waste is
emitted where it goes later is the liability of the municipality
 Faulty nature of municipal drain
 Subordinate Judge granted a perpetual injunction and awarded the plaintiff a
thousand rupees as damage
  Ogston v. Aberdeen District Tramways Co.
 Plaintiff is entitled to restrain the defendant from discharging the refuse liquid of his
factory into the municipal drain
Dr. Ram Baj Singh vs Babulal, AIR 1982 All 285
 Plaintiff-Appellant was a Medical Practitioner
 He built a consulting chamber
 Defendant-Respondent erected brick-grinding machine
 brick-grinding machine was generating dust which polluted the atmosphere and
entered the consulting chamber
 machine had been set up by the defendant-respondent without any permission or
licence from the Municipal Board
 defendant-respondent contended that no dust emanated during the process of
grinding bricks
 Bricks were moistened before the grinding process
 Machine did not produce any noise
 Trial Court found that the dust did emanate and pollute the atmosphere
 however, dismissed the suit on the finding that the dust resulting from the machine
did not cause any substantial injury either to the plaintiff or to his patients
 No actionable nuisance
 HIGH COURT- The expression "special damage" is used in law to indicate a damage
caused to a party in contradistinction to damage caused to the public at large.
 dust emanated from the crushing of bricks was a public hazard and was bound to
cause injury to the health of the persons
 dust from bricks entered in sufficient quantity into the consulting chamber of the
plaintiff-appellant so that a thin red coating was visible on the clothes of the persons
sitting there
 A permanent injunction issued against the defendant-respondent

Negligence
 When there is a duty to take care and the same is not taken, which results in some
harm to another person, it is amounted to negligence
 The plaintiff must show-
 the defendant was under a duty to take reasonable care
 There was a breach of this duty
 The breach of duty caused the damage
 • The degree of care depends on the surrounding circumstances
• The casual connection between the negligent act and the plaintiff’s injury is often the
most problematic link in pollution cases.

Mukesh Textile Mills (P) Ltd. vs H.R. Subramanya Sastry, AIR 1987 Kant 87
 earthen tank had become dilapidated having been dug into by rodents and as a
result the northern embankment collapsed
 a large quantity of molasses in the tank overflowed and emptied themselves into the
water-channel and through the water channel, inundated and spread over
respondents' land
 Respondents brought the suit for damages of Rs. 35,000/- contending that extensive
cultivation of paddy and sugarcane had been damaged
 defendant pleaded ‘Act of God’
 Rs. 14,700/- was awarded as damages by the Civil Judge, Shimoga
 Appellant Mukesh Textile Mills (P) Ltd. had a sugar factory in Harige Village, Shimoga
District
 Adjacent to the sugar factory, respondent own several extents of land irrigated by a
distributory channel
 The Water channel runs in between the premises of the sugar factory and
respondents' lands
 Appellant stored molasses, a bye-product in the manufacture of sugar, in three tanks
in the factory premises
 Two of them were steel tanks and the third, a mud one with earthen embankment
 8000 tonnes of molasses were stored in the earthen tank
 The liability of the appellant rests on two principles
 First, the appellant, who had stored large quantities of molasses in a mud tank had
the duty to take reasonable care in the matter of maintenance, in a state of good
repair, of the embankments of the tank
 Both from the foreseeability test and of initial causation it must be held that the
appellant is liable
 Donoghue v. Stevenson
 Second, the Appellant by storing a large quantity of molasses on the land had put the
land to a non-natural use (Rylands v. Fletcher)
 The damages awarded was scaled down to Rs. 12,200/-from Rs. 14,700/-.