Has PIL become the primary tool of environmental governance in India? Critically analyse its strengths and limitations.

Public Interest Litigation (PIL) relaxes the rule on who may approach a court (locus standi). Any citizen can move a court under Articles 32 and 226 in the public interest. In November 2026, a PIL led the Madras High Court to order the closure of 87 resorts in Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve that had neither DTCP building approval nor HACA land-use permission [1]. Cases like this make PIL the most visible tool of environmental governance, though not yet the primary one.

Strengths: why PIL appears primary

• Fills enforcement gaps: the Erode Collector's own report admitted that 87 resorts were operating without approval. Closure and demolition came only through the PIL [1].
• Expands rights: courts have read a healthy environment into Article 21. They have also developed the precautionary and polluter-pays principles (Vellore Citizens, 1996).
• Continuing mandamus: courts keep cases open and monitor compliance for years, as in the T.N. Godavarman forest case.
• Ecological rights: the Supreme Court upheld the Nilgiris elephant-corridor order and affirmed animals' right of passage over resort owners' claims [2].
• Builds institutions: the NGT Act, 2010 now requires a specialised tribunal to apply sustainable-development, precautionary and polluter-pays principles [3].

Limitations

• Delay: the Nilgiris corridor case ran from the High Court's 2011 order to the Supreme Court's 2020 verdict [2]. Habitat loss continued in the meantime.
• Weak compliance: in Sathyamangalam, sealed resorts kept running "through the back door" [1]. Courts must rely on the same executive that failed in the first place.
• Interim, case-by-case relief: the Sathyamangalam order is interim and can still be challenged [1]. PIL treats symptoms, not gaps in land-use planning.
• Separation of powers and expertise: judges end up shaping policy without technical capacity, which invites charges of judicial overreach.
• Misuse: frivolous or motivated PILs clog court dockets.

Verdict: a corrective, not the primary tool

• Day-to-day governance still rests on statutes such as the Wild Life (Protection) Act and the Environment (Protection) Act, and on regulators such as NTCA, pollution control boards and DTCP/HACA.
• PIL comes into play when these bodies fail. It works as governance of last resort, and its growing use reflects regulatory failure.

PIL has strengthened the environmental rule of law, but courts cannot substitute for capable regulators. The way forward has four parts:

• strengthen and coordinate regulators;
• create independent compliance committees, like the one the Supreme Court set up to hear objections in the Sigur corridor case [2];
• keep public, integrated land-use records;
• give green benches technical experts.

This would fulfil Article 48A and SDG 15 (life on land), with PIL as a safeguard rather than a substitute.