Critically evaluate the growing reliance of courts on expert scientific bodies when making environmental policy.

Environmental cases often turn on technical questions such as safe noise levels, emission loads and particulate thresholds, which judges are not trained to answer. Courts therefore rely more and more on expert bodies. On 30 September 2026, for example, the Supreme Court ruled out a nationwide firecracker ban and accepted CSIR-NEERI's "limited and conditional relaxation" for green crackers [1]. The trend is largely useful, but it has real limits.

Merits of expert reliance

• Precise, evidence-based standards: NEERI prescribed a noise ceiling of 125 dB(AI)/145 dB(C) peak, along with shell size, shell number and bursting duration [1]. A court could not have drafted these norms by itself.
• Proportionality instead of blanket bans: Green crackers cut particulate matter by about 30–35% [2]. This lets the court weigh the Article 21 right to clean air against Article 19(1)(g) livelihoods and Article 25 festival practice [1].
• Institutionalised expertise: The NGT Act, 2010 requires that a bench hearing a case have as many Expert Members as Judicial Members [3].
• Compliance monitoring: CSIR-NEERI acts as the certifying institute, so the court can keep supervising compliance through expert testing [4].

Concerns

• Separation of powers: When courts turn expert advice into binding norms, they bypass executive rule-making under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and weaken democratic accountability.
• Partial fixes: Green crackers reduce emissions but do not remove them [2]. Calling a product "safe" may increase use and cancel out the gains.
• Capacity bottlenecks: Court-ordered certification by one lab risked delays. New centres of excellence at NEERI Nagpur and CECRI Karaikudi were set up partly because of this [4].
• Lab–street enforcement gap: Formulations are approved at the factory, but the green logo/QR system [2] only works if sellers are checked in the market.
• Contestability: Expert reports come through the Centre [1] and are rarely peer-reviewed or cross-examined, which raises questions about independence.

Way forward

• Publish expert reports for public comment and seek opinions from more than one scientific body.
• Courts should lay down principles (precautionary, polluter-pays) and leave detailed standards to statutory regulators such as the CPCB.
• Pair standards with enforcement through market-sample testing, QR checks at the point of sale and public pollution data.

Overall, expert bodies give courts scientific depth and help them avoid crude bans. That value lasts only if their advice stays transparent and open to challenge, and if regulators and enforcement agencies act on it. Used this way, court reliance on experts can serve the Article 21 right to a healthy environment and SDG 11.6 on urban air quality without weakening democratic governance.