Coastal Regulation and Shrimp Aquaculture: SC restricts harmful commercial farming, applies precautionary and polluter pays principles.

SC held that commercial shrimp aquaculture could not continue within the Coastal Regulation Zone, except for traditional and improved traditional systems, because such farms were not directly tied to waterfront use and harmed fragile coastal ecology. It found non-traditional shrimp farming caused salinisation, water pollution, mangrove loss, drainage obstruction, loss of agricultural land, and interference with fishing and coastal access, so it required strict environmental scrutiny and exclusion from prohibited coastal areas. The Court also applied sustainable development, the precautionary principle, and the polluter pays principle, directing eco-restoration, compensation to affected persons, and recovery of restoration costs from polluters through a specialised authority.

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Issues: Whether commercial shrimp aquaculture could be permitted within the Coastal Regulation Zone; whether non-traditional shrimp farming was environmentally harmful and required prohibition or strict regulation; and whether the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle governed remedial measures for coastal ecological damage.

Issue (i): Whether commercial shrimp aquaculture could be permitted within the Coastal Regulation Zone.

Analysis: The coastal notification issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 prohibited specified activities within the Coastal Regulation Zone. Commercial shrimp farms were held to be neither directly related to the water front nor directly needing foreshore facilities. The Court found that modern shrimp ponds within the prohibited coastal belt were hazardous to coastal ecology and that the notification had overriding force over inconsistent State enactments.

Conclusion: Commercial shrimp aquaculture could not be permitted within the Coastal Regulation Zone, except for traditional and improved traditional systems.

Issue (ii): Whether non-traditional shrimp farming was environmentally harmful and required prohibition or strict regulation.

Analysis: On the material before it, including the expert reports, the Court found that extensive, modified extensive, semi-intensive and intensive shrimp farming caused salinisation, pollution of surface and ground water, destruction of mangroves, obstruction of natural drainage, loss of agricultural land, and interference with fishing and access to the coast. The Court held that any such activity had to undergo rigorous environmental scrutiny and could not be allowed where it degraded fragile coastal ecosystems.

Conclusion: Non-traditional commercial shrimp farming was held to be environmentally damaging and liable to be stopped in the prohibited coastal areas.

Issue (iii): Whether the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle governed remedial measures for coastal ecological damage.

Analysis: The Court accepted sustainable development as part of environmental law and treated the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle as governing standards. It directed constitution of a specialised authority, eco-restoration measures, compensation to affected persons, and recovery of the cost of restoring damaged ecology from the polluters.

Conclusion: The precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle were applied as binding principles for coastal environmental protection and remediation.

Final Conclusion: The petition succeeded, and the Court issued comprehensive directions to prohibit harmful commercial shrimp aquaculture in protected coastal areas, require environmental regulation through a specialised authority, and secure restoration and compensation for ecological harm.

Ratio Decidendi: Sustainable development, including the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle, forms part of Indian environmental law, and commercial aquaculture that degrades ecologically fragile coastal areas must yield to constitutional and statutory duties to protect the environment.

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