SC stay on Ganga, Yamuna order right

The Supreme Court has rightly stayed the judgement of the Uttarakhand High Court which had declared the Ganga and the Yamuna legal entities. The order conferred on the rivers the status of living beings entitled to all the rights under the law. This was purportedly to protect, preserve and conserve the rivers and was thought to give a new dimension to the efforts to stop their pollution and degradation. But the judicial innovation could only be deemed to be a strange and fanciful idea to deal with a real problem that has defied solution for decades. There is no precedent for the decision except an order of a court in New Zealand which had declared a river a legal personality as it was part of the history and life of the Maori tribe. That order was meant to serve a sentimental purpose, and to issue a similar one in India was being unwise.

The Supreme Court stayed the order on an appeal by the Uttarakhand government. The high court order had bestowed on the state the legal responsibility of protecting the rivers and had made government officials its legal parents. The order did not take into consideration some of its practical implications and consequences. The state contended that the order was not sustainable under the law and there was no clarity on many issues that it raised. It was also wrong to hold one state responsible for all the activities on the rivers that passed through many states. An order which was thought to do good to the rivers had in fact the potential to do them much harm. It is also not clear why only the Ganga and the Yamuna should be accorded this special status. There are other rivers and mountains and many things of nature, and even man-made things like the Taj Mahal, which need protection from pollution. Should they be all made legal personalities to save them?

The Ganga has always had a divine status in the country. That did not help it remain clean. It is difficult to see how a new legal status would aid in curbing its pollution. There are enough number of laws in the country to fight pollution. All the programmes to make the Ganga clean failed not because of any inadequacy of the law but because of mismanagement, corruption and other reasons. Courts invite uncomfortable questions about themselves when they give unacceptable or even amusing answers to issues raised before them. Judges should employ judicial reasoning and not poetic imagination, which has enjoyed turning rivers into humans.