Supreme Court Seeks Centre's Views On Balancing Preservation Of Great Indian Bustard With India's Solar Energy Needs

The Supreme Court on Friday (January 19) sought the views of the Union Government on striking a balance between the need to protect the Great Indian Bustard, an endangered bird, and India's international commitments toward lowering the carbon footprint through solar energy.

The bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra sought updated status reports from the Union and States of Rajasthan and Gujarat on the measures taken to prevent the deaths of the Bustards due to the collision with overhead transmission wires installed at solar panel projects.

Attorney General for India R Venkataramani appeared for the Union. Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for solar project operators who were aggrieved with the restrictions placed on overhead lines to protect the bird.

Appearing on behalf of the petitioners(who seek measures to protect the bird), Senior Advocate Mr Shyam Divan submitted that there has not been full and complete compliance with the directions issued by the Supreme Court on April 19, 2021. He additionally stressed the deaths of the Great Indian Bustards due to collision with the over-head transmission lines. “ The Great Indian Bustards cannot avoid it because of its large size. It's the heaviest bird of flight anywhere on the planet. It cannot avoid a transmission line and therefore there's a huge number of deaths that are caused by collisions.”

The CJI then asked whether there was any data to show that the causes of death were traceable to the installation of transmission lines. “Do we have any scientific studies?”, he asked.

Divan replied that such scientific studies have already been placed as part of the records and mentioned that even after the directions of the Court, there have been instances of deaths due to collision with the transmission lines.

On The Two-Level Compliance - Need For Underground Transmission Lines And Bird Diverters

Divan highlighted that the previous orders of the Court need to be strictly complied with. The compliance has to be done on two levels, firstly to make all the overhead transmission lines underground and ensure that prospective transmission lines are also built underground; and secondly, the need to have good quality bird diverters.

"Some of the bird diverters were substandard, or there were collisions taking place on the lines on which the bird diverters were put but the diverters had fallen off,” he said.

The CJI enquired if there's any authentic government-monitored study to see the efficacy of bird diverters. He asked, “To what extent are the bird diverters efficacious?”

Striking The Balance Between Conservating The Bustards And Keeping Up With India's Solar Power Commitment

Pointing to the need to have a balance between the cause of the petitioners and the government's solar panel projects, the CJI remarked, “Anything that we do has to be Judicially tangible…we don't blame anybody, the industry is also saying, ;look our project is held up'. How do we deal with these matters?”

Adding to this, Senior Advocate Manu Singhvi underlined that the area where the collisions are happening is India's most prolific solar area which “allows us to fulfil our anti-carbon footprint commitments”. He highlighted that there cannot be extensive dependence on underground wiring of transmission lines all these lines are high voltage and need joints, thus making it dangerous to be placed underground.

According to Mr Singhvi, the fallacy in the petitioners' argument was that not every death of the Great Indian Bustard can be attributed to transmission wires. He referred to the affidavit submitted by the AG stating possible ways to conserve the species either by creating bird enclosures; artificial inseminations and breeding farms for the Bustards.

Noting the same, the CJI posed a question to the AG as to what could be done to strike the balance between the two public issues before the court

“ Mr Attorney, we are cognizant of the fact that you are also dealing with the areas of development. India is to meet their international obligations with regards to alternate forms of energy …. Now you tell us what the Govt. Intends to do?”

 Saying “ A lot of measures have been taken”, the AG sought time to place on record an updated affidavit on the way forward to address the conflicting issues at hand.

Concluding the matter, the Court directed the union to file an updated status report on the above discussions as well as the Chief Secretaries of the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat to file their status reports pursuant to the previous court orders. The 3-member committee as constituted by the Court was also directed to file affidavits on the steps taken so far.

The matter is now listed for February 9.

Background

The Supreme Court had on 19th April 2021 passed its judgement issuing directions for the protection of the Great Indian Bustard from extinction. It had also constituted a Committee with three members, namely, a) Dr. Rahul Rawat, Scientist; b) Dr. Sutirtha Dutta, Scientist, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun; c) Dr. Devesh Gadhavi, Deputy Director, The Corbett Foundation. The committee was directed to prepare and file quality standards in consultation with the Central Electricity Authority for the protection of the Great Indian Bustard. Accordingly, the following directions were passed–

1. Complete installation of bird diverters in priority areas.

2. States of Rajasthan and Gujarat along with power producers to ensure that an assessment is done within priority areas to assess the total length of transmission lines along with diverters required.

To ensure that directions issued by this court are complied with, the bench issued the following further directions:

1. Chief secretaries of Rajasthan and Gujarat to assess the total length of transmission lines and the estimated number of bird diverters in priority areas required.

2. The committee shall submit an updated status report by the next date.

Further, the bench left it open for the Committee to seek views of the technical experts and stated that the committee may take the expert opinion of the COO of Central Transmission Utility of India Ltd.

As a departing comment, CJI DY Chandrachud also asked the Attorney General for India R Venkatramani to take instructions from the Ministry of Forest and Environment on whether it was possible to have a 'Project Great Indian Bustard' in a manner similar to the 'Project Tiger'.

CASE TITLE: MK Ranjitsinh And Ors. v. Union of India And Ors. WP(C) No. 838/2019

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