Law Report

Meet MC Mehta. He's widely regarded as the world's most important environmental lawyer. He is credited with saving the Taj Mahal from acid rain, helping clean up the Ganges River and reducing Delhi's air pollution.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Damien Carrick: Let's now shift focus from small civil suits lodged by individuals to massive public interest litigation on a scale that's really quite hard to fathom.

Australia faces enormous environmental challenges, but whatever our problems we are a very rich country and we do have the resources, if not always the stomach, to address those problems.

India however is a very, very poor country, and while it does have environmental legislation, enforcement is a big issue.

For 25 years lawyer MC Mehta has been fighting for India's environment. He's widely regarded as India's (and perhaps the world's) most important environmental lawyer. He's credited with saving the Taj Mahal from the ravages of acid rain, helping stem pollution in the River Ganges and improving air quality in Delhi.

Last week he was here in Australia as a guest of Macquarie University.

MC Mehta wasn't always a committed environmental warrior. But back in 1983 his whole life changed when he was invited to a dinner party, and found himself cornered by a very cranky dinner guest.

MC Mehta: One day when I was at a dinner party, one person came to me and he said that 'You are an attorney, and you people have become very greedy, and you don't want to do anything except make money.' I looked at his face, I said, 'What is your problem?' and he said, 'Taj Mahal is dying. Taj Mahal is getting polluted, it has a marble cancer, and nobody wants to protect it, even the government of India.'

So I gave my card to him and I said, 'If you have anything, you please send it to me, and I will see that something can be done.' But the words which he uttered at that time, they penetrated so deep into my psyche that I could not think further, except the Taj Mahal. Then I went to see the Taj Mahal myself along with my wife; there was acid rain and a refinery, and other polluting factories nearby.

Damien Carrick: What was happening to the Taj Mahal?

MC Mehta: Marble of the Taj Mahal was getting eroded and it got the marble cancer. It was becoming yellow, and the stone was getting deteriorated in its quality. I prepared a case and it took six months to prepare that case.

Damien Carrick: So you filed that petition I think way back in 1984; the case went for many, many years; what practical changes did that case lead to?

MC Mehta: In 1992 the Supreme Court of India started hearing this case, and it went on for about five years. In 1992 the court started taking action against the polluting industries, and then the refinery was emitting sulphur-dioxide to the tune of 1,000 kilograms per hour. So then the court took action against that refinery; the refinery had to change over to the cleaner technologies, change over to the clean fuels, and many other things happened so to save the Taj Mahal.

Damien Carrick: This case led to a huge number of changes, I think something like 200 small factories surrounding the Taj Mahal closed down, and another 300 were put on notice that they had to install pollution control devices, and I think the court also ordered something like 200,000 trees be planted in the area.

MC Mehta: That's right. A green belt was created around the Taj Mahal, and then more than 200,000 trees have been planted, and more steps are being taken and this case is still being monitored by the court, and a committee has been appointed, and that committee goes every two months and comes back to the court and files reports, and whether the court directions are being carried out. And then the court tries to sort out those things.

Damien Carrick: When foreigners think of India, they often think of the Taj Mahal; they often also think of the Ganges River. You're also involved in an ongoing case involving the Ganges River. How did you first become aware of the pollution in the Ganges? There was a very disturbing item in the news, I think.

MC Mehta: Yes. Again, it happened in 1985. I came to know that a stretch of the Ganges River caught fire, and that was near Patnar, that's a very sacred place, and pilgrimage centre, and it was this news I read in the newspaper, and I was intrigued to know that how the water can catch fire. And so I went to visit those places, and I went over there and saw that two industries, they were causing serious pollution, and they were discharging chemicals through the drains, and then the drain was joining the river, and when somebody was walking one day, and he just lit a cigarette and just threw the matchstick, and with that matchstick, about a kilometer of that stretch caught fire, and the fire was so ferocious that it went up to about 30 feet high, and it could not be extinguished for 30 hours.

At that time I did not realise that this case will become a monumental case. And later on, I informed the court that these are not only the two industries, but downstream there are thousands of industries which are equally polluting. So the court, after hearing the case, issued notices through newspapers in India, and through radio, television networks, to all the industries from the beginning of the Ganga to the end of the Ganga, all those industries and municipal towns, were directed to appear before the court, and give their side of the story as to why they're polluting, and when they're going to stop the pollution.

In this case at one time, there were more than 200,000 industries party to this case, and eight states over the party, and now this case is being heard by the Supreme Court and in one other High Court in India that is in West Bengali, Calcutta High Court.

Damien Carrick: So the companies and the municipal authorities were being hauled before the court and being asked 'Why aren't you complying with environmental legislation which we have here in India on the books'?

MC Mehta: Yes, that's what happened and then the court even imposed pollution fines, and closed down major industries like distilleries, the sugar, the tanneries, the Supreme Court closed down more than 600 tanneries in Calcutta, and they were shifted out.

Damien Carrick: The scale of this case is astonishing. Something like 5,000 factories were directed to install pollution control devices and something like 250 towns and cities were ordered to set up sewerage treatment plants. It's astonishing.

MC Mehta: Yes, it is, the credit goes to the Supreme Court and the judges who were really wonderful, and the Supreme Court of India delivered a landmark judgment and for the first time I think that many things have happened because of the court action.

Damien Carrick: You have a reputation for being an effective communicator with the media. You also have a reputation for being a very good court performer. There's a very interesting story I read about you. You were fighting on behalf of residents in a village in Rajasthan whose water was polluted by sulphuric acid which was being dumped into the water by five local factories. Can you tell me about the pivotal moment in that court case?

MC Mehta: In this case I went to Rajasthan and these industries, five industries, they're manufacturing highly dangerous chemicals. As a result of that 80 wells nearby, they got polluted. Up to 80 feet below, the groundwater became highly polluted, the toxic, it was like a Coca Cola colour, or whatever you call that. It was horrible. I went over there, I saw the people drinking that water; the animals drinking that water, I saw how the crops were withering away. So I filed this petition before the Supreme Court, and the industry hired very eminent lawyers, and the leading lawyer of India, you know, he started arguing this case. He argued for a long time, and he said that I'm doing this for my publicity, this is all wrong; the industry's right in all this. It was just that I thought that morning they let me carry a bottle of water from that area. I had collect water samples from the same place.

So I was keeping that in my bag, and once his arguments were over, I took that water bottle on my table, and then I started making my submissions. And one of the presiding judges said, 'What is this? What is this, is it rum?' I said, 'No, my lord, it is not rum, it is the drinking water. And if my friend on the other side who has argued this case beautifully, if he takes a sip of this water, if he drinks the water from this bottle, I will withdraw this case.'

Damien Carrick: You said to this very famous lawyer, 'I will drop the case if you will drink one drop of this water; I will drop this case.'

MC Mehta: Yes, I said. And he said, 'No, no, no, I can't drink this water.' I said, 'If you can't drink this water, then how the people in that area drink this water?' And then the honourable court asked me, 'What do you want?' I requested the court to provide drinking water to the people of those villages.

Damien Carrick: And of course this was a very, very far-reaching victory because it was the first time that the Supreme Court of India ordered factories to be shut down, and for the first time, polluters were required to clean up the water that they had fouled, and restore the ecology of the affected region.

MC Mehta: You are right, yes.

Damien Carrick: I imagine that you would have created many, many powerful enemies over the years. Have you ever received threats, and have your family ever been affected?

MC Mehta: Oh yes, many times. Many times they shadowed me. At Agra, before the Taj Mahal, they demonstrated. They have burned my effigies, and even recently, they did the same thing. At one time when I was asked to deliver a memorial lecture, they surrounded me and they were trying to lynch me, and I was saved. So these things happen, you know, but one should not be afraid because we have to, some people have to come forward and take bold steps you know.

Damien Carrick: India is a democracy and it has independent courts. How important are those institutions in the fight to save the environment?

MC Mehta: We have created institutions, and that way it is a democratic country and we have the right to speak, and we have the right to protest and all those things happen. But again, still, the awareness level is very less in India on environmental issues. And that was the reason that I brought a case in 1991 that environment should become a compulsory subject in India throughout the country, and that is what happened.

Damien Carrick: And India is now the only country in the world where environmental awareness is a compulsory part of the school curriculum.

MC Mehta: Yes, and that is what happened. And the second direction was that all over the country the cinema theatres and video parlours, every day in each show, they should give two environment-related messages of short duration, and if they don't, their licences will be cancelled. And the third direction was to the radio and television networks all over the country, that they should, every day, give programs up to 7 minutes every day on environmental issues, and one prime program at prime time every week.

Damien Carrick: Do you think that this Supreme Court of India decision, which made environmental awareness compulsory, and made it compulsory for the cinemas and the video parlours to play environmental messages, and made it compulsory for the TV networks and the radio stations to cover environmental issues, do you think that's made a real difference to awareness in India?

MC Mehta: Yes, of course. I'll give you an example. I was fighting a case of vehicular pollution in the Supreme Court, and one day a top functionary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests, a bureaucrat, he called me, and he said, 'MC, you have entered into my house now, into my family, and you are changing them, also.' I said, 'What happened?' He said, 'In the morning, when my child was going to the school, he refused to sit in the car.' I said, 'Why?' He said, 'So long as this vehicle will emit smoke, I'm not going to sit in this car.' And he said he was forced to bring another taxi to send his child to the school. So the children, they can really teach the parents, you know.

Damien Carrick: So you're saying that we have to look to the next generation and shift their thinking, and maybe they can help shift ours?

MC Mehta: Yes, of course. I don't have much hope you know, in our generation, but I do have hope in the future and the younger generation. The young generation, they can be really, once they are sensitised properly, they can come forward and protect themselves and protect the environment.

Damien Carrick: MC Mehta, thank you very much for a truly fascinating and inspiring discussion.

MC Mehta: Thank you. I'm very happy to have talked to you.

Damien Carrick: The extraordinary MC Mehta talking about just a few of the many groundbreaking cases he's battled over the last 25 years.

That's The Law Report for this week. A big thank you to producer Erica Vowles and also to technical producer, Carey Dell.

I'm Damien Carrick, talk to you next week with more law.

Guests

MC Mehta
Indian environmental lawyer

Presenter

Damien Carrick

Producer

Erica Vowles

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