Protecting the Environment and Biodiversity of the Godavari Area from Marble Quarrying - Decided Case
Writ Number 065-WF-0005|068–WO–0082
Year: 2065
Petitioner and Respondent: Advocate Prakash Mani Sharma and others on behalf of Pro Public v. Government of Nepal and Others
Advocate Prakash Mani Sharma and the Pro Public pursued public interest litigation to close a marble mine in the Godavari hills outside Kathmandu, Nepal. The Godavari area is described as a “living museum” of cultural and biological significance and has been negatively impacted by the mining operations.
During the pendency of a separate case seeking to close the mine (filed before the Court in 2001), the Department of Mines and Geology issued a decision allowing the mining company to continue operations for a 10-year period, until 2021. Pro Public challenged the decision as arbitrary, mala fide and unlawful, asking the Court for an order canceling the permit, designating the Godavari area closed to mining, and ordering the company to restore the environment.
The Supreme Court determined that the mining operations are inconsistent with the constitutional rights to a healthy environment and to live with dignity, and Nepalese laws on environmental protection. The decision contains an eloquent exposition on the importance of nature to human life:
The Nature and its environment are regulated by the rule of the Nature. Any activities done against those rules which are also known as the cause disturbance to the balance of the Nature. Even through animals and the flora and fauna follow this rule of the Nature knowingly or unknowingly, human beings are trying to transgress its limits. Modern men who boast of having reached the pinnacle of development are becoming dependent on machines. The food and living habits, daily routine and certain activities seem to be unpalatable to the society and thus contrary to the natural rules. In the name of ultra modernism such unnatural and polluted methods are being imported at a swift speed towards an undeveloped and backward society.
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