Discuss the role of judicial intervention in enforcing environmental regulation in India, with reference to the Supreme Court's recent directions on Rajasthan's Jojari river.

Judicial intervention in environmental governance rests on Article 21, read as a right to a clean environment, and on the precautionary and polluter pays principles declared law of the land in Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum (1996) [2]. The Supreme Court's Jojari orders illustrate both the reach and the limits of this role.

How courts enforce environmental regulation — the Jojari example

• Suo motu cognisance and continuing mandamus: the Court took up contamination of the Jojari–Bandi–Luni system in Jodhpur, Pali and Balotra, affecting roughly two million people in a water-starved state, issuing successive orders rather than a single verdict [1].
• Gap-filling standard-setting: on 24 August 2026 it barred construction within 100 m of the Jojari and hazardous industries within 500 m of the flood line — buffers that regulators had never scientifically demarcated [1].
• Raising benchmarks: insistence on Zero Liquid Discharge goes beyond the consent-based minimums of the Water Act, 1974, whose SPCB machinery had allowed units to operate without consent [3].
• Institution-building: a 20-point resolution plan and a task force under the Rajasthan Chief Secretary, alongside the existing High-Powered Committee [1].
• Tiered escalation: the NGT had earlier ordered a zero-discharge action plan and penalised defaulting Jodhpur industries, with the apex court stepping in on persistent non-compliance [4].

Limitations of the judicial route

• Courts substitute for, rather than repair, weak executive capacity; the implementation gap has survived over a decade of orders [4].
• Blanket buffers impose economic costs — relocating Pali's riverbank textile-dyeing cluster threatens livelihoods [1].
• Relief remains episodic and case-specific, unlike programmatic frameworks such as Namami Gange/NRCP [5].

Judicial intervention has thus been indispensable in converting environmental statutes from paper commitments into enforceable duties. Its gains endure only when courts' interim buffers are institutionalised through scientifically demarcated flood lines, adequately staffed pollution boards and basin-level rejuvenation plans — aligning enforcement with SDG 6 and the sustainable-development mandate of Article 21.