Published On: July 21st 2026
Authored By: V.C. Sukumar
The Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University (SOEL)
“The earth is what we all have in common.”–Wendell Berry
INTRODUCTION
Climate litigation has quickly become a crucial and dynamic field within the landscape of Indian environmental law. Courts across the country are most notably the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal are progressively leveraging constitutional rights, environmental legislation, and international agreements to mandate accountability for climate neglect. By doing so, they are holding state authorities answerable for policy shortcomings and shielding at-risk communities from the damaging consequences of a changing climate. Climate litigation has emerged as a powerful mechanism to compel States to take climate action. Although India has been active in the arena of environmental litigation and Indian Courts have rarely heard climate change cases. The cases that have come before the Indian Courts have not received much active attention from the Courts primarily owing to the absence of an umbrella climate legislation in India. But this trend may be changing now with the Indian Supreme Court hearing, for the first time, the Ridhima Pandey appeal that directly challenges the Indian government’s inaction on climate change issues. This raises a very pertinent question and is it now time for the wave of active and effective climate change litigation in India? The Ridhima Pandey appeal (Civil Appeal No. 388 of 2021, Supreme Court of India) is a genuine opportunity for the Supreme Court to answer this question and set the stage for future climate litigation in India, which is highly needed given the urgency of the climate crisis and there being no window for disappointment left.
LEGAL ANALYSIS
These are the 2025 directives of this case, which are interim directions in an appeal pending (Civil Appeal No. 388/2021) and not a final judgement. Earlier, in M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India (2024)[1], the real recognition of a constitutional ‘right against the adverse effects of climate change’ was made, which means that a ‘right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change’ under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. The Ridhima Pandey lawsuit marks a new phase in how India integrates climate issues into constitutional law: it represents a shift from merely declaring a theoretical right to actively trying to enforce it through inter-agency teamwork and judicial monitoring[2].
This study reviews the underlying facts of the litigation, the specific mandates issued by the Court in 2025, their impact on legal theory and government institutions, and the statutory and practical hurdles that restrict their ultimate effectiveness.
The battle started in March 2017 when Ridhima Pandey, a nine-year-old from Uttarakhand, filed a petition in the National Green Tribunal (NGT). Her lawsuit asserted that the Indian government’s efforts to combat climate change were insufficient. She grounded her case on the public trust doctrine, India’s obligations under the Paris Agreement, and the rationale that the definition of “environment” within the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 naturally extended to climate change factors include climate by its very nature. But the NGT dismissed the petition on 15th January 2019. The tribunal ruled that climate change issues were already being addressed in environmental impact assessments under the 1986 Act, and found no reason to believe India’s regulatory approvals were ignoring its global climate promises. Later in the same year, Pandey took her case to the Supreme Court. Then the appeal was stuck in the stage of filing preliminary papers for quite a while this is quite common in Indian public interest litigation where cases often get stuck for procedural reasons, without getting an actual hearing in a court room. The real breakthrough came after the Supreme Court’s March 2024 ruling in M.K. Ranjitsinh. The case itself was about the clash between protecting the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard and building out solar and wind power in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. But the Court took a broader view. It held that the right to life (Article 21) and right to equality (Article 14) inherently included the right to be protected from the adverse effects of climate change[3].
This landmark declaration provided a much stronger legal basis for Pandey’s stalled appeal. As a result, the Court appointed two independent legal experts (amici curiae) – advocates Jay Cheema and Sudhir Mishra – in December 2024, to assist them in the complex regulatory and legal issues of climate policy.
SUPPORTING AUTHORITY
On February 21, 2025, Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Manoj Misra delivered the ‘2025 Supreme Court directives’ in this matter. It is important to clarify this court order; the order is interim and procedural in nature as it involves notice and directions, rather than an ultimate judgment regarding the matter appealed. Regardless of this, the main provisions of the order demonstrate the active participation of the Court.
In particular, the Court made several significant statements. First, the Court emphasized the ratification by India of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement through such documents as the National Action Plan on Climate Change and State Action Plans on Climate Change. Nevertheless, further analysis was required as for the enforceability of these documents. Secondly, it is necessary for the Court to conduct an analysis of the current legislation governing environmental issues like the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and integrate climate-related guidelines into them. Thirdly, with regard to the structure of the institutions dealing with these issues, the Court observed that the relevant ministries appeared to be acting independently of each other. In order to rectify this situation, the Court asked for eight ministries to be made parties to this litigation. These include the Ministry of Environment, Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy, Petroleum & Natural Gas, Road Transport and Urban Development, and Textiles. Further, it instructed the government to provide a consolidated list of the guidelines concerning carbon emissions.
This litigation case is yet ongoing, as hearings have been scheduled in the months of March, April, and July in the year 2025. Further, technical reports by amici curiae are still being provided and being considered by the Court along with submissions by the Union[4].
It is the process objectives of the 2025 directions that make them significant, not the content. It was Ranjitsinh who set up the constitutional vocabulary; and Ridhima Pandey is the realm through which the Court seeks to develop an institutional mechanism for operationalizing that vocabulary. Three features deserve special mention. One is the adoption of a continuous mandamus model of supervision, a practice already utilized by Indian courts in other public-interest areas (as for instance in the cases concerning pollution of the Yamuna and Ganga rivers). In this case, what the judiciary does is to keep the issue alive for an extended time period, making various directions in between and seeing to it that these directions are complied with instead of making one-off decisions. This is a noteworthy expansion because the judiciary’s continued involvement in a sphere normally under the control of policy and diplomacy is implied here. Another point is that the eight ministries are simultaneously impleaded, which shows that the judicial branch recognizes that climate change goes beyond sectoral limits and thus calls for cooperation across sectors, something that has not been accomplished through policy instruments like the National Action Plan on Climate Change. Lastly, there is an explicit call for reviewing the adequacy of some important environmental laws from the perspective of climate. While the Environmental Protection Act of 1986 and the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1981 have been enacted several decades earlier and do not address greenhouse gas emissions, the judicial suggestion that these acts be modified would provide an essential clue to legislators if any effort is to be made in this regard.
It cannot be denied, however, that the directions correctly identified the gap in the governance system. India currently lacks climate change legislation akin to the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Act or the European Union’s Climate Law, and all climate policy has been formulated in terms of executive policies or missions. By putting the question of enforcement in a high-profile case in court and involving an applicant that is a minor at that, the proceedings have made sure that climate change remains in the public and institutional spotlight where mere policy papers have failed. Several factors, meanwhile, limit the effectiveness of the directions as a matter of policy. First, the directions are merely interim in nature – they do not add any new binding obligations, compliance timeline, or penalties for non-compliance. In that sense, procedural orders may create momentum, but experience from environmental cases in India suggests that procedures will not necessarily result in concrete policy action in any predictable timeframe. Secondly, there is a risk of violation of the doctrine of separation of powers, which is something that needs to be addressed candidly. Ordering multiple government ministries to coordinate on climate change and reconsider their statutory framework may be seen as encroaching on the policymaking process. One side of argument will describe it as the judiciary fulfilling its role in a situation where the legislature is not doing enough, while others may say that it is judicial overreach, which involves the court telling the executive to coordinate on the policy matters where the courts lack the expertise and legitimacy. Both arguments have merit, and ultimately depend on the final outcome of the case and what kind of framework for enforcement is eventually established. A further point of concern regarding the enforcement issue relates to the applicability against third parties. Neither the state governments nor any other party aside from those currently impleaded in the proceedings is directly involved in the case. It thus leaves a gap in the coverage of any eventual framework of enforcement.[5]
CONCLUSION
This case decision on February 2025 should be read more as an operational step than as a final constitutional statement. What makes the decision important is its potential to operationalise the constitutional recognition of the right made in the preceding decision of Ranjitsinh in a context where India’s climate governance is still fragmented among various ministries and lacking a statutory basis. On the other hand, the interim nature of the directions, the unclear separation of powers issues created by the decision, and the long history of slow progress within the same case make up the shortcomings of the order. It is not yet clear whether the case will produce a workable climate accountability mechanism or simply become another example of judicial monitoring without resolution.
REFERENCES
[1] M.K. Ranjitsinh vs Union Of India INSC 280 on 19 December, 2025
[2] India’s New Constitutional Climate Right Examining the Significance of M.K. Ranjitsinh and Others v. Union of India and Others for Climate Litigation in India, 25 April 2024, https://verfassungsblog.de/indias-new-constitutional-climate-right/
[3] Sushovan Patnaik, Supreme Court Review 2024: Speaking green, acting grey on key environmental issues, 4th Jan 2025, https://www.scobserver.in/journal/supreme-court-review-2024-speaking-green-acting-grey-on-key-environmental-issues/
[4] Climate Change Litigation in India: An Emerging Frontier in Environmental law (2026), https://vil.ac.in/climate-change-litigation-in-india-2026/
[5] Is Ridhima Pandey v. Union of India Going to Change the Future of Climate Change Litigation in India? – An Assessment of the Indian Supreme Court’s Recent Order, https://www.wy4cj.org/legal-blog/is-ridhima-pandey-v-union-of-india-going-to-change-the-future-of-climate-change-litigation-in-india-an-assessment-of-the-indian-supreme-courts-recent-order
