The Supreme Court on Friday held that companies cannot claim to be socially responsible while disregarding the protection of wildlife and fragile ecosystems affected by their operations.
A two-judge bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Atul S Chandurkar while hearing submissions in the long-running case on conservation of critically endangered Great Indian Bustard held that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) cannot be divorced from a company’s environmental responsibility. “CSR funds are not acts of philanthropy but instruments to discharge constitutional and fiduciary duties, particularly where corporate activities threaten endangered species,” the bench said.
