The Role of Environmental Laws in Curbing the Environmental Crime in India: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Environmental crime has arisen as a transnational governance obstacle that undermines ecological integrity, human health, and sustainable development, especially in developing economies such as India. Apart from a comprehensive statutory law comprising constitutional provisions, institutional specific environmental legislation, and specialised dispute adjudication like environment tribunal and courts, the offence against environment continues to rise. This article critically examines the enforcement robustness of environmental legal framework, moving beyond statutory analysis to examine why compliance deficient persevere. By adopting a doctrinal and analytical methodology, the study outlines the environmental governance theory, regulatory compliance literature and review, and environmental offences to assess the systematic, institutional, and sociolegal barriers to effective enforcement. It is assumed that India’s environmental governance regulation suffers from segmented authority, poor deterrence mechanism, lack of public participation, and extreme dependence on judicial intervention. By situating Indian environmental law within wide theoretical debates on enforcement, compliance, and environmental rule of law, this article contributes to conceptual discussions important to transnational environmental governance. The study also proposing a preventive, participatory and compliance-oriented implementation model lined up with sustainable development goals and environmental governance standards