The Constitutional Right Against the Adverse Effects of Climate Change: A Doctrinal Analysis of M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India
Abstract
In March 2024, the Supreme Court of India, while adjudicating a writ petition concerning the conservation of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard, recognised a new constitutional right the right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change grounded jointly in Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. This recognition, articulated in M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India, is significant not merely because it is the first explicit judicial acknowledgment of a standalone climate right in India, but because it emerged in a case that was not primarily framed as a climate rights dispute. This article undertakes a doctrinal examination of the judgment, tracing the constitutional reasoning by which the Court derived the right, situating it within the broader lineage of Article 21 jurisprudence, and critically assessing its practical implications. The article argues that while the recognition of the right is a doctrinally significant and overdue development, its immediate application in the same judgment diluting earlier protective directions for the Great Indian Bustard in favour of renewable energy infrastructure exposes an unresolved tension between the rhetoric of climate rights and their enforceability. The article further examines the subsequent December 2025 order of the Court, and concludes by considering what legislative and judicial steps are necessary to translate this right from constitutional aspiration into an enforceable legal standard.
Keywords
Climate Change Litigation; Constitutional Environmental Rights; Article 21; Great Indian Bustard; Right to a Healthy Environment; Indian Supreme Court.
