This article is written by Ankita Tripathi, a second-year undergraduate law student at C.M.P. Degree College, Allahabad University.
Abstract
India has made significant strides in its climate policies, but its environmental law continues to marginalise indigenous groups in many respects. A comprehensive study of environmental justice for Adivasis and Scheduled Tribes reveals major systemic contradictions between state-driven conservation, corporate resource extraction and tribal land sovereignty. Apart from this, the dispute is governed by constitutional rights under Article 14, 21 and 300A apart from the more specialized provisions of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. Remedial laws like the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 and PESA, 1996 were expected to remedy historical injustice, but they have recently been subject to legislative rollbacks and bureaucratic resistance. Indigenous autonomy and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) are fundamental to any real ecological mitigation, as demonstrated in landmark cases such as the Niyamgiri case. In the end, if India is to move towards a sustainable, community-led model that respects the constitutional obligations of distributive justice, equality and dignity promised to its original environmental caretakers, then the gap between institutional promise and reality will need to be bridged.
Key words: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), Environmental Justice, PESA, Forest Rights Act (FRA), Indigenous Autonomy, Constitutional Law
Introduction
The fundamental tenets of environmental justice are that everyone should have a significant say in environmental governance and that no group should be disproportionately responsible for ecological harm. The structural marginalization of indigenous communities has led to the growth of this ideology globally, and India provides a remarkable example of the underlying paradox. More than 80% of India’s important river catchments, forests, and mineral richness are found in the ancestral homelands of Scheduled Tribes, or Adivasis, who make up just
8.6% of the nation’s population. Many of these villages have been systematically evicted as a result of rapid industrialization.
The state has frequently taken tribal property for mining and extensive infrastructure in the name of national development, frequently using legal theories from the colonial age such terra nullius and eminent domain. These original ecological stewards bear nearly all of the externalized costs of resource extraction, such as deforestation, toxic contamination, and cultural erasure, while cities and industrial corporations remote from the harm profit financially. With an eye toward a more rights-based realignment of Indian environmental law, this article explores the constitutional, legislative, and judicial frameworks that regulate this tense relationship.
Environmental Justice and Indigenous People
The fair treatment and meaningful participation of all people in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies— regardless of race, color, national origin, or income—is known as environmental justice. It calls for equitable protection against ecological damage and a real voice in environmental governance for all people, regardless of their identity or financial situation. For indigenous peoples, who have been connected to their ancestral lands for millennia, sustainable land management is essential to their cultural and spiritual identities.
In practice, the two concepts are interdependent. Indigenous populations are frequently singled out for resource exploitation, toxic dumping, and state-approved displacement since their territories contain a large portion of the world’s biodiversity and natural resources. This results in a clear injustice: distant cities and industrial firms profit financially while indigenous populations bear externalized ecological costs like chemical poisoning and deforestation. This deterioration puts their entire way of life in jeopardy since their cultural existence is so intimately linked to the health of the ecosystem. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that indigenous groups have become front-line leaders in global conservation,
utilizing traditional wisdom to claim sovereign rights and prioritize environmental justice in the fight to preserve ancestral lands.1
Constitutional Safeguards
The Indian Constitution remains the principal bulwark against the systematic exploitation of indigenous land. Although it makes no explicit mention of “environmental justice,” the judiciary has built its core principles through an expansive reading of Part III. Article 21 — guaranteeing that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except by procedure established by law — forms the essential foundation of this protection. 2The Supreme Court has consistently held that, for indigenous communities, “life” extends well beyond mere biological survival to encompass the preservation of culture, custom, clean resources, and a heritage inseparable from ancestral soil. Forcibly removing an indigenous population from its forest environment without proper rehabilitation and ecological remediation therefore amounts to a structural violation of Article 21.
This protection works alongside Article 14, which bars manifest arbitrariness in state action and guarantees equality before the law. When regulatory bodies grant environmental clearances to carbon-intensive extractive industries while bypassing the statutory consultation procedures owed to tribal communities, Article 14 is violated in turn.3
Although the 44th Amendment removed the Right to Property from Part III, it survives as a robust constitutional right under Article 300A, 4 which protects communal forest resources and customary land holdings against unlawful government overreach by requiring that no person be dispossessed except in accordance with law. The Fifth and Sixth Schedules, framed under Article 244, add a further layer of protection beyond these broad fundamental rights. 5The Fifth Schedule, which applies to “Scheduled Areas” in central India, grants governors
wide legislative power to restrict the transfer of tribal land to corporate or non-tribal parties, and mandates Tribes Advisory Councils to secure a measure of indigenous self-governance. The Sixth Schedule goes further still for several north-eastern states, establishing Autonomous District Councils with independent legislative, administrative, and judicial authority over land, water, and forests. Together, these provisions carve out a distinct constitutional reality: indigenous lands are treated as special legal zones bound by a strict fiduciary duty of public trust, not as public property open to unrestricted economic exploitation.
India’s attempts to operationalize environmental justice are caught between discriminatory colonial-era frameworks and progressive, rights-based laws. The Indian Forest Act of 1927 prioritized commercial wood exploitation and centralized government authority, treating traditional forest residents as unlawful encroachers for many years. 6This top-down, exclusive strategy was strengthened by the post-independence Forest (Conservation) Act, 19807, which gave state-centric conservation precedence over community-led management. Parliament eventually passed two significant correctives. The Gram Sabha, or village assembly, must be consulted prior to any land acquisition for development or resettlement, according to Section 4(i) of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled territories) Act, 1996 (PESA), which expanded local self-governance to Fifth Schedule territories.8
In order to redress the “historical injustice” inherent in unrecorded tribal land titles, the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA) was passed. It acknowledges both communal forest rights (CFR) and individual forest rights (IFR) for agriculture, which provide the Gram Sabha the authority to sustainably manage and safeguard community forest resources. Importantly, Section 6 gives the Gram Sabha the primary authority to decide the extent of these rights by removing the old forest bureaucracy’s final veto.9
The Judicial Terrain
The borders of environmental justice in India have been established by a number of significant Supreme Court decisions that resulted from the conflict between state development goals and indigenous autonomy. The crucial foundation was established in Samatha v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1997). Examining mining licenses issued to private businesses under the Fifth Schedule the Court ruled that “person” encompasses both natural humans and corporate entities, ordered any sale of tribal territory to private parties to be void, and upheld the state’s obligation to serve as a trustee in order to safeguard the socioeconomic empowerment of indigenous people.10
The Niyamgiri case, Orissa Mining Corporation v. Ministry of Environment & Forests (2013), was the pinnacle. In the Dongria Kondh tribe’s holy territory in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha, a global business attempted to harvest bauxite.11 In addition to recognizing the Gram Sabhas’ quasi-judicial jurisdiction to evaluate the project’s impact, the Supreme Court intervened by directly connecting the tribe’s spiritual, cultural, and forest rights to the right to life under Article 21. The project failed after twelve Gram Sabhas unanimously rejected the lease after required local elections; this effectively established the Indian notion of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC).
In Wildlife First v. Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (2019), conservation organizations contested the FRA on the grounds that tribal claims were hastening deforestation, which put a stop to that progressive trajectory. 12The Court first ordered the eviction of millions of households whose claims had been denied, exposing the fundamental conflict between an exclusive “fortress-conservation” paradigm and an inclusive framework for environmental justice. The decree revealed how precarious indigenous land protections are, even if it was ultimately revoked in the face of strong resistance.
Regulatory Shortfalls
Despite having a solid theoretical basis, state forest departments’ bureaucratic resistance is largely to blame for the discrepancy between local policy and reality. Applications for Individual and Community Forest Rights are often denied by these organizations on trivial grounds, viewing the FRA as an infringement on their regulatory domain rather than the corrective measure it was intended to be.
Decades of progress might be undone by recent legislative amendments. Wide exclusions from core forest clearing standards were created by the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, especially for land designated for critical linear projects such defense infrastructure and roads that are located within 100 kilometers of international boundaries. By avoiding regular clearance procedures and going through vulnerable tribal areas, these amendments dilute the statutory Gram Sabha permission needed under the FRA and prioritize infrastructure above constitutional tribal safeguards.
In light of this, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which was created by the NGT Act of 201013, has grown in significance. Although its record is still varied and occasionally favors technocratic conformity over indigenous self-determination, it has initial jurisdiction over civil environmental issues involving significant legislative problems under Section 14. The NGT must incorporate indigenous rights verification into its clearance assessments if it intends to provide true environmental justice.
Reformative Pathways
It will need significant institutional change to go from official statutory recognition to effective enforcement on the ground. Every significant environmental law must have Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). Consultation would become an enforceable democratic right rather than a bureaucratic formality if the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notifications were amended to demand official Gram Sabha approval.
A community-led alternative must replace the state’s exclusive “fortress conservation” strategy. By utilizing traditional ecological knowledge in carbon sequestration and watershed protection, securing Community Forest Rights (CFR) under the FRA connects climate aims
13National Green Tribunal Act 2010
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/2025/1/AA2010__19green.pdf (last visited July 2026).
with indigenous rights. Additionally, tribal organizations require capacity building and committed legal assistance. Tribal communities would have a genuine opportunity to handle complicated corporate litigation before the NGT if environmental legal clinics were established within Scheduled Areas and sponsored by statutory resources like CAMPA or District Mineral Foundations (DMF).
Conclusion
For India’s indigenous people, environmental justice is, in many respects, a litmus test for the country’s constitutional democracy. In direct conflict with the constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity, and life under Articles 14 and 21, the current model too frequently places environmental costs on poor indigenous populations while distributing industrial gains elsewhere. While legislative landmarks like the Forest Rights Act of 2006 and PESA of 1996 offer genuine avenues to address historical injustice, their efficacy is still constrained by bureaucratic resistance and conflicting industrial priorities. The historic Niyamgiri decision demonstrates that ecological sustainability and indigenous autonomy are closely related objectives rather than antagonistic ones. India must see its indigenous peoples as vital partners in creating a sustainable future rather than as roadblocks to development as it deals with the demands of fast economic expansion and global climate change.
References
1. Climate Change Academy, ‘Environmental Justice & Indigenous Rights: Protecting Lands’ (Climate Change Academy) https://climatechange.academy/climate-change society/environmental-justice-indigenous-rights-protecting-lands/(last visited July 2026).
2. Constitution of India 1950, art. 21.
3. Constitution of India 1950, art. 14.
4. Vajiram & Ravi, ‘44th Constitutional Amendment Act’ (Vajiram & Ravi) https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-exam/44th-constitutional-amendment-act/ (last visited July 2026).
5. Vision IAS, ‘Local Governance: Fifth and Sixth Schedule Areas and Cooperative Societies’ (Vision IAS) https://cdn.visionias.in/value_added_material/1e00f-local governance_fifth-and-sixth-schedule-areas-and-cooperative-societies.pdf (last visited July 2026).
6. Indian Forest Act 1927
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/15385/1/the_indian_forest_act%2C_ 1927.pdf (last visited July 2026).
7. Forest (Conservation) Act 1980
\https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/19381/1/the_forest_%28conservatio n%29_act%2C_1980.pdf (last visited July 2026).
8. Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1973/1/A1996-40.pdf (last visited July 2026).
9. Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/8311/1/a2007-02.pdf (last visited July 2026).
10. Samatha v State of Andhra Pradesh (1997) 8 SCC 191
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1969682/ (last visited July 2026).
11. Orissa Mining Corporation v Ministry of Environment and Forests (2013) 6 SCC 476 https://indiankanoon.org/doc/109648742/ (last visited July 2026).
12. Wildlife First v Union of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No 109 of 2008 (Supreme Court of India, 13 February 2019) https://indiankanoon.org/doc/58553838/ (last visited July 2026).
13. National Green Tribunal Act 2010
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/2025/1/AA2010__19green.pdf (last visited July 2026).
