Krishnan, Petitioner vs State of Tamil Nadu and others, Respondents País/Territorio India Tipo de la corte Otros Fecha Jun 27, 2005 Fuente UNEP, InforMEA Nombre del tribunal High Court of Judicature at Madras Juez Kalifulla Número de referencia W.P.No.20186 of 2000 and W.P.M.P.No.29342 of 2000 Idioma Inglés Materia Agua Palabra clave Derecho constitutional Abastecimiento de agua Escasez de agua/sequía Resumen The petitioner in this Public Interest Litigation sought for a direction against the respondents to remove the encroachments made by the respondents in Villupuram District measuring 5 acres. The court noted that since time immemorial ponds, tanks and lakes had been used by the people of the Country, particularly in rural areas, for collecting rain water for use for various purposes. Such ponds, tanks and lakes had thus been an essential part of the people’s natural resources. However in recent years these had been illegally encroached upon in many places by unscrupulous persons who have made their constructions thereon, or diverted them to other use. This has had an adverse effect on the lives of the people. Day in and day out, many such petitions were being filed by way of ’public interest litigation’ alleging encroachments into ponds, tanks and lakes in different parts of this State. Having regard to the acute water scarcity prevailing in the State of Tamil Nadu as a whole, the court felt that a time had come where the State had to take some definite measures to restore the already earmarked water storage tanks, ponds and lakes. The endeavour of the State should be to protect the material resources like forests, tanks, ponds, hillock, mountain, etc., in order to maintain the ecological balance. The Supreme Court had highlighted that such maintenance of ecological balance would pave the away to provide healthy environment which would enable the people to enjoy a quality life which was essence of the right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. While the State was bound to maintain the natural resources to keep the ecological balance intact and thereby provide a healthy environment to the public at large in the State of Tamil Nadu, having regard to the precarious water situation prevailing in the major part of the year, it was imperative that such noted water storage resources, such as tanks, canals etc. were not obliterated by encroachers. The court emphasized that Article 48A of the Constitution was in the Directive Principles of State Policy, but it was now well settled that the fundamental rights and directive principles had to be read together. Though previously they were said to be non-justiciable and nonenforceable in the courts, the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court laid down that there was no disharmony between the directive principles and fundamental rights because they supplemented each other in aiming at the same goal. Apart from the above the court also referred to Article 51A(g) of the Constitution which made it a fundamental duty of every citizen "to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life". This duty could be enforced by the court. Therefore, it directed the respondents to take necessary legal steps to remove the alleged encroachments. It also directed the State Government to identify all such natural water resources in different parts of the State and wherever illegal encroachments were found, initiate appropriate steps for restoring such natural water storage resources so that the suffering of the people of the State due to water shortage was ameliorated. Texto completo text.asp