While “sustainability” has been more or less accepted as the basic ruler to measure the virtues/limitations of a given model of development; the critical question, that remains to be answered, is How does one estimate and ascertain sustainability of development? This is the point where one invokes the so called “system's analysis”. Discussion and examination of the environmental systems become all the more useful and complex when one factors in the energy component. An ever increasing demand for energy and power for driving the wheel of industrial production and agriculture twinned with quantitative constraints on the use of such non-renewable resources as fossil fuels, has placed the energy sector at cross roads.

In this chapter it is argued that the recognition of Earth as an “environmental system” and our growing understanding of it coupled with the evolution of our insight regarding it over the past two decades has seen turning points in many fields and facets of environmental management. On one hand – concurrent complementary growth of NGOs crusading for the cause of environment have influenced entirely new sets of laws and regulatory programmes in India. On the other hand, environmental activism and interventions of our judiciary has made some of the most difficult and impossible regulatory measures “possible and implementable”! These two drivers pushed the polluters and regulators in a newer context in which pollution treatment became less attractive when compared with the options of waste minimization, recycle, and recovery.

Dr. Shyam R. Asolekar teaches at the Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay since 1993. Currently, he is also serving as the President of the Indian Environmental Association. His areas of research and practice have been Environmental Policy, Preventive Environmental Management, Hazardous and Radioactive Waste Treatment, Treatment of Industrial Wastewaters; and Application of Remotely Sensed Data for Monitoring of Environmental Systems. Dr. Asolekar has been a member of the Dahanu Taluka Environmental Protection Authority entrusted with conservation of the eco-fragile region of Dahanu Taluka and surroundings constituted by the Honorable Supreme Court of India. He has also been included as a member of the Steering Committee of Network for Reuse of City Effluents for Agriculture under the Global Water Partnership Initiative in South Asia as well as in the Asian Regional Research Programme on Environmental Technology funded by the Swedish Development Co-operation Agency. He advises the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India and the Central Pollution Control Board, on regulations and guidelines for management of municipal and hazardous wastes. He also advises industries as well as industrial estates on the issues related to common facilities for management of effluents and hazardous wastes and eco-industrial development. Dr. Asolekar has received several awards and fellowships. He has supervised three Ph.D. theses and 26 masters' theses to date. He has authored two patents and several technical papers.

The Answer Key gives the correct answers to those exercises where each of the questions has a correct answer. But there are a number of other exercises where there is a possibility of more than one appropriate answer and these have not been covered in this Answer Key. These need discussion to decide which answers may be acceptable and which unacceptable.

In the case of some exercises, the answers can be looked up in a good dictionary. For example, the one under Grammar and Usage which requires you to decide whether a certain noun has singular and plural forms and what meanings it has in these two forms.

Under Comprehension, there are questions to which the answers can be found in the reading passage and these are not included here.

Defamation Section 499. Whoever by words, either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm; the reputation of such person, is said, except in the cases hereinafter excepted, to defame that person.

Explanation 1. It may amount to defamation to impute anything to a deceased person, if the imputation would harm the reputation of that person if living, and is intended to be hurtful to the feelings of his family or other near relatives.

Explanation 2. It may amount to defamation to make an imputation concerning a company or an association or collection of persons as such.

Explanation 3. An imputation in the form of an alternative or expressed ironically, may amount to defamation.

Explanation 4. No imputation is said to harm a person's reputation, unless that imputation directly or indirectly, in the estimation of others, lowers the moral or intellectual character of that person, or lowers the character of that person in respect of his caste or of his calling, or lowers the credit of that person, or causes it to be believed that the body of that person is in a loathsome state, or in a state generally considered as disgraceful.

The law applicable to the facts of a dispute may be contained in an Act of Parliament, and knowing the law then involves interpreting a legislative text. Unlike case law, where judges construct their own texts out of precedents (rationes decidendi), with statute law the texts are presented to them.

Legislation may be described as law made deliberately in a set form by an authority, which the courts have accepted as competent to exercise that function. From sparse and scanty beginnings, its use steadily increased until now the output of statutes has assumed formidable proportions. Although the volume and the nature of certain kinds of legislation may be subjected to criticism, there is universal agreement that deliberate law making of this kind is indispensable to the regulation of the modern state. The part played by the judges in the struggle between the prerogative and Parliament enabled them to preserve in their hands a considerable measure of power, one aspect of which is that what becomes ‘law’ is their interpretation of statute through the operation of stare decisis. As Lord Devlin has put it:

What does the future hold for a practising lawyer? While predicting the future is always risky; it is extremely likely that the lawyer of 2010 will be using technology to perform many of the tasks now performed manually or by assistants, and some lawyers are using technology now in every aspect of their practice. This article will focus on the impact of technology and the Internet on communications, legal research and dispute resolution in cyberspace, since the most far-reaching and challenging changes are occurring in the way that lawyers connect with clients and each other over the Internet. It is a safe bet, however, that technology will bring, in the next 20 years, far-reaching changes in the other areas of law practice affected by it. For instance, lawyers of the future will use technology to market their practices on the Internet, will continue to use smaller and smaller computers to practise law, will create documents using computers and document processing technology, will continue to automate the financial accounting and billing functions, and many other topics beyond the space constraints of this article. What technology is doing to our profession, and how we will use technology to make ourselves better lawyers, and have fun doing it, are subjects that can fill many volumes, and are as broad as the practice of law itself.

PREAMBLE

An Act to provide legal recognition for the transactions carried out by means of electronic data interchange and other means of electronic communication, commonly referred to as ‘Electronic Commerce’, which involve the use of alternatives to paper-based methods of communication and storage of information, to facilitate electronic filings of documents with the Government agencies and further to amend the Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act, 1872, The Bankers' Books Evidence Act, 1891, and the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

WHEREAS the General Assembly of the United Nations by resolution A/RES/51/ 162, dated 30 January 1997 has adopted the Model Law on Electronic Commerce adopted by the United National Commission on International Trade Law;

AND WHEREAS the said resolution recommends inter alia that all States give favourable consideration to the said Model Law when they enact or revise their laws, in view of the need for uniformity of the law applicable to alternatives to paper-based methods of communication and storage of information;

AND WHEREAS it is considered necessary to give effect to the said resolution and to promote efficient delivery of Government services by means of reliable electronic records,

The short question which arises for determination in this appeal is whether ‘dryer felts’ manufactured by the assessee fall within the category of ‘all varieties of cotton, woollen or silken textiles’ specified in Item 30 of Schedule ‘B’ of the Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). If they are covered by this description, they would be exempt from sales tax imposed under the provisions of the Act; otherwise they would be liable to sales tax. The assessing authorities held that the ‘dryer felts’ manufactured by the assessee were not ‘textiles’ within the meaning of Item 30 of Schedule ‘B’ and they were, therefore, not exempt from sales tax. The Tribunal, on appeal, also took the same view and rejected the claim of the assessee to exemption from sales tax in respect of sales of ‘dryer felts’. The assessee thereupon moved the Tribunal for making a reference to the High Court and on this application, the following question of law was referred by the Tribunal for the opinion of the High Court:

The judicial process stands in a class of its own; it involves different kinds of reasoning.

INDUCTION

This applies to finding a major premise. The term ‘induction’ is not a happy one but will serve for want of a better. The process bears only a broad parallel to scientific induction in so far as it proceeds from instances of particular cases to a generalised rule. ‘Facts of case A were decided Y’; ‘Facts of case B were decided Y’; Therefore, strictly, facts A and B should be decided Y’. It may, however, be reasonable to extract a broader proposition capable of yielding decision Y in situation C (and perhaps D and E) as well. Any such broader proposition has to be reasonably warranted by the material out of which it was extracted, or it is liable to be cut down as being too wide by a later court.

There are differences between this type of reasoning and scientific induction:

1. a. A scientist can repeat his experiment and verify his principle; a judge cannot.

2. b. Scientific principles result from observations of data; judicial principles result from statements of fact and value-judgments.

3. c. A judge can reason by analogy and choose between competing analogies; a scientist does not.

4. d. A scientific principle has to be modified so as to accommodate new data; judicial principles are modified in response to moral and policy considerations.

5. […]

The Nature of Law

The term ‘law’ is used in many senses: we may speak of the laws of physics, mathematics, science, or the laws of football or health. When we speak of the law of a state we use the term ‘law’ in a special and strict sense and in that sense law may be defined as a rule of human conduct, imposed upon and enforced among, the members of a given state.

Man is by nature a social animal desiring the companionship of his fellows, and in primitive times he tended to form tribes, groups, or societies, either for self-preservation or by reason of social instinct.

If a group or society is to continue, some form of social order is necessary. Rules or laws are, therefore, drawn up to ensure that members of the society may live and work together in an orderly and peaceable manner. The larger the community (or group or state), the more complex and numerous will be the rules.

If the rules or laws are broken, compulsion is used to enforce obedience. We may say, then, that two ideas underlie the concept of law: (a) order, in the sense of method or system; and (b) compulsion, i.e. the enforcement or obedience to the rules or laws laid down.

Custom, Morality and Law

When we examine the definition of law given above, we notice certain important points.

The law is divided into two great branches, the criminal and the civil, and of these much the greater is the civil. Since the nature of the division must be grasped at the outset, I shall try to give a simple explanation of it.

The distinction between a crime and a civil wrong, though capable of giving rise to some difficult legal problems, is in essence quite simple. The first thing to understand is that the distinction does not reside in the nature of the wrongful act itself. This can be proved quite simply by pointing out that the same act may be both a crime and a civil wrong. Occasionally at a bus station there is someone who makes a living by looking after people's impedimenta while they are shopping. If I entrust my bag to such a person, and he runs off with it, he commits the crime of theft and also two civil wrongs – the tort of conversion and a breach of contract with me to keep the bag safe. The result is that two sorts of legal proceedings can be taken against him: a prosecution for the crime, and a civil action for the tort and for the breach of contract. (Of course, the plaintiff in the latter action will not get damages twice over merely because he has two causes of action: he will get only one set of damages.)

Also known as the World Court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is based in the Peace Palace, The Hague, Netherlands (Holland). The ‘judicial arm’ of the United Nations (UN), it was created as part of the UN in 1945, replacing its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice.

Procedure

The ICJ is comprised of fifteen judges elected for nine-year terms by the UN's Security Council. Elections are such that five judges are elected every three years. The judges are paid $145,000 every year in salary and in US dollars. The Chief Justice (presently an Algerian, M. Bedaoui) gets a $15,000 bonus. The judges are not elected based on their nationality, but on their knowledge of international law and on a desire that the bench represents ‘the main forms of civilisation and the principal legal systems of the world’. An informal understanding exists whereby members of the Security Council each have a judge on the Court so the unofficial distribution is: Western Europe: 5, North America: 2, Eastern Europe: 2, Africa and the Middle East: 4, Asia: 2 and Latin America: 2. No two judges of the ICJ may be from the same country. A President and a Vice President are selected from the bench by a vote amongst the judges, and for a three year term. Once elected, only a unanimous vote of the other judges can remove an ICJ Justice from office. The ICJ also has the freedom to appoint its own registrar, clerks and other officers. The Court has prepared practice rules.

What is Plain English? (Martin Cutts)

What is really meant by plain English? Is it anything more than a slogan used by campaigners to publicise themselves and their favourite cause, and by businesses selling editing and document design services?

Undoubtedly plain English is a woolly term. As no formula can genuinely measure the plainness of a document, I would rather describe plain English than define it. In my view, plain English refers to:

This means pitching the language at a level of sophistication that suits the readers and using appropriate structure and layout to help them navigate through the documents. It does not mean always using simple words at the expense of the most accurate words or writing whole documents in kindergarten language – even if, as some adult literacy surveys claim, some seven million adults in the UK and about 70 million adults in the US cannot read and write competently.

‘Plain’ has connotations of honesty, or should have. Essential information should not lie or tell half-truths, especially as its providers are often socially or financially dominant. For example, insurance policies should not hide management charges beneath a mass of detail and doublespeak.

Aprecedent influences future decisions. Every decision is pronounced on a specific set of past facts and from the decision on those facts a rule has to be extracted and projected into the future. No one can foresee the precise situations that will arise, so the rule has to be capable of applying to a range of broadly similar situations against a background of changing conditions. It has therefore to be in general terms and ‘malleable’. As pointed out at the beginning, no word has one proper meaning, nor can anyone seek to fix the meaning of words for others, so the interpretation of the rule remains flexible and open-ended.

Applying a precedent to the instant case is a process of matching the fact-pattern of the precedent and the rule thereon with the fact-pattern of the instant case; if they match, the rule is applied, if not, it is distinguished. This involves two kinds of knowledge namely, knowing the facts and knowing the law applicable to those facts.

Knowing the facts

Knowing the facts of the instant case involves an exercise of discretion. This lies initially in believing or disbelieving the testimony of witnesses and weighing it on a balance of probability. Judges are human, so the quirks of individual personalities may also play some part occasionally.