Abstract
Contamination of soil and water sources from hazardous industrial activities remains a persistent and serious environmental and public health challenge in India. Judicial doctrines such as the polluter-pays principle, the precautionary principle, and the concept of the public trust, along with a patchwork of statutes, have provided tools for pollution control but lacked a statutory, site-specific remediation pathway for legacy contaminated land. The Environment Protection (Management of Contaminated Sites) Rules, 2025, is the first dedicated legal framework for the identification, verification, declaration, and remediation of contaminated sites. This article critically examines the 2025 Rules through legal, doctrinal, and policy perspectives, situates them within the constitutional and statutory framework, and evaluates their provisions against institutional realities and international best practices, such as the US CERCLA/Superfund, EU liability frameworks, and China’s soil law. It draws on official disclosure reports from the Central Pollution Control Board and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC 2025), as well as a case study of the Bandhwari landfill in Gurugram. The paper argues that while the 2025 Rules mark a progressive step, they will only lead to transformative outcomes if complemented by a stable national remediation finance mechanism, enhanced technical and institutional capacity, and detailed liability regulations. Recommendations include legal refinements and governance reforms necessary to operationalize the Rules in a manner consistent with India’s constitutional environmental commitments.