Agencies
NEW DELHI, Apr 8: Climate change impacts the constitutional guarantee of the right to equality, the Supreme court has said while constituting a committee to find a balance between conservation of critically-endangered Great Indian Bustard and renewable energy infrastructure in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat.
The top court recalled an earlier order of April 2021 that required undergrounding of overhead transmission lines across an area of over 80,000 sq km in the two states.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said a blanket direction for undergrounding high voltage and low voltage power lines needs recalibration.
"Climate change may impact the constitutional guarantee of the right to equality. Without a clean environment which is stable and unimpacted by the vagaries of climate change, the right to life is not fully realised. The right to health (which is a part of the right to life under Article 21) is impacted due to factors such as air pollution, shifts in vector-borne diseases, rising temperatures, droughts, shortages in food supplies due to crop failure, storms, and flooding," the bench said.
Great Indian Bustards (GIBs) are especially found in Rajasthan and Gujarat, and the alarming decrease in their numbers is attributed to frequent collisions with overhead power transmission lines, including those of solar plants, near their habitats.
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