84% of green offences registered under Tobacco Products Act in 2021

As many as 64,471 cases were registered under environment & pollution-related offences in 2021 - an increase of 4.4% over the previous year, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report. As much as 84% of these cases, i.e., 54,024 cases, have been registered under the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), an act that regulates the production, supply, distribution and trade of cigarettes and other tobacco products in the country. These were followed by 7,217 cases registered under the Noise Pollution Act.

Incidentally, the cases registered under environmental-focused legislations form a minuscule portion of the total cases related to offences towards environment and pollution. For the year 2021, only 55 cases have been registered under the Air & Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act; 252 cases under the Environmental Protection Act; 2,292 cases under the Forest Act & the Forest Conservation Act; 16 cases under the National Green Tribunal Act and 615 cases under the Wildlife Protection Act.

The state of Tamil Nadu has the highest number of cases registered under environment-related offences, accounting for 72% of all the cases. Out of the total 46,458 cases registered in Tamil Nadu, 46,433 are COPTA cases.

"It is a case of misrepresentation of data of categorising the whole of COPTA as an environment offences statute," said advocate Nadiya Sarguroh, principal associate at MZM Legal. "Only Sections 4 and 21 of the COTPA related to smoking in public places qualify to be an environmental crime."

The NCRB data do not specify the section or provision of COPTA under which cases were registered. Explaining the reason why so few cases were registered under the environmental legislations, Sarguroh told ET that there were fines attached to the offences under the environment legislations.

So, even before the case is registered, the fine is paid, and the offence is compounded, and a case never gets registered. “If we are having the provision of fines to be paid for serious offences against the environment, companies pay the fines and move on and the penalties fail to have any deterrence effect on the violators”, she added.

“The awareness about the environmental legislations as well as their enforcement is deplorable even as the non-compliance related to electronic waste, batteries disposal and medical waste disposal is a serious issue,” said Nagaraj Krishnan, MD, Aparajitha Corporate Service. “While the high-profile or large-ticket items get the attention, there is a general lack of enforcement despite the existence of very well-defined and relatively new legislations that have been formulated in the last 20-25 years,” he said.

Environmental offences are still regarded as white-collar crimes that are subject mostly to civil charges and get condoned with a payment of fines. “There is no deterrence right now and decriminalising the offences, as has been recommended, is only going to further spoil the compliance to the law” said Sarguroh.

A resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last December on preventing and combating crimes that affect the environment calls upon the member states to make crimes that affect the environment, in appropriate cases, serious crimes.

At a time when compliance with the ESG norms – wherein E stands for environment - is gaining traction in corporate India amid climate change and net-zero pledges, the NCRB data present an abysmal record of the enforcement of environmental laws.