In which year was the Environment Protection Act passed?

CONCEPT: The Environment (Protection) Act is India's umbrella environmental legislation, enacted by Parliament under the enabling power of Article 253 of the Constitution (to give effect to decisions of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment). It filled the gap left by the earlier sector-specific laws -- the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 -- by creating a single overarching mechanism empowering the central government to set standards and take emergency action against any environmental hazard, from any source.

APPLICATION: This Act was drafted in direct response to the December 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, which exposed the absence of any comprehensive law letting the government act swiftly on hazardous substances and processes. Parliament passed the Bill and it received Presidential assent on 23 May 1986 (Act No. 29 of 1986), coming into force that same year. So the correct year is 1986.

CROSS-CHECK: The other years on offer correspond to unrelated events, not to this Act:

• 1982: no major central environmental statute was enacted this year; the sector-specific Air Act had already been enacted a year earlier, in 1981.

• 1992: this is the year of the Rio Earth Summit (UNCED), an international conference, not an Indian domestic law.

• 1996: no landmark central environmental statute was enacted in this year; the Environment (Protection) Act had already been in force for a decade by then.