Court case2017 SCC OnLine Utt 367

A public interest petition complained of encroachments on the banks of a canal and of the failure of the State of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh to cooperate in managing the Ganga and its canals after the division of the State. While disposing of it the High Court took up the wider question of protecting the rivers Ganga and Yamuna, which it described as sacred, central to the faith of Hindus and dying from pollution. Days earlier New Zealand had recognised the Whanganui river as a legal person.

Relying on Pramatha Nath Mullick, Yogendra Nath Naskar and SGPC v. Som Nath Dass, the court held that a juristic person is created by the law to serve a social need and that, to preserve and conserve them, the rivers Ganga and Yamuna and all their tributaries and streams are 'juristic / legal persons / living entities having the status of a legal person with all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person'. The Director of NAMAMI Gange, the Chief Secretary and the Advocate General of Uttarakhand were declared persons in loco parentis, 'the human face', to protect and represent the rivers. In a later order the court extended the status to glaciers, lakes and forests of the State.