What Is a Continuing Cause of Action in NGT Cases?

A continuing cause of action exists where the wrong itself keeps happening, day after day, so that a fresh grievance arises every day it continues. A factory still discharging effluent, a crusher still running without consent or a dump still being burnt is a continuing wrong, and in practice the NGT generally does not throw such cases out merely because the activity started years ago. It is different where a single act was completed long ago and only its effects remain, such as a building finished years back or a clearance nobody challenged in time. That distinction decides whether an old problem is still within the NGT's time limits.

Section 14 of the NGT Act gives six months from the date the cause of action 'first arose'. Read alone, that would bar almost every complaint about pollution that began before last winter. This guide explains how the continuing wrong idea answers that, where it stops working, and how to plead it so that the first preliminary objection does not end your case. It sits within our guide on how to file a case in the NGT.

For a full table of every NGT time limit and how condonation of delay works, see our guide on whether it is too late to go to the NGT.

The essentials

What is a continuing cause of action in NGT cases?

A cause of action is the set of facts that gives you the right to go to court. Most causes of action arise once: a contract is broken on a date, an order is passed on a date. A continuing cause of action is one where the wrongful conduct is repeated or carries on without a break, so the grievance does not arise once and then sit still. It arises afresh every day the conduct continues.

Environmental harm is often like this. A tannery that discharges chromium-laden water into a drain does not commit one wrong in the year it opened; it commits the wrong again every night it discharges. A stone crusher operating without consent breaks section 21 of the Air Act every day it runs. A municipal body dumping garbage beside a pond fails its duty under the waste rules each day the dumping goes on.

The practical consequence is that a person living with such pollution is usually not shut out of the NGT simply because the activity began long before the last six months. The NGT has generally been reluctant to dismiss applications about pollution that is still happening on limitation alone, though it decides each case on its facts.

Why the words 'first arose' in section 14 cause trouble

Section 14 says an application must be made within six months of the date on which the cause of action for the dispute first arose, with up to 60 more days if the tribunal is satisfied there was sufficient cause. Section 15 uses the same 'first arose' language for its five-year period. Read literally, the clock starts on the first day of the pollution and never restarts.

Respondents use that reading as their first defence: the unit has run since 2018, so the application in 2026 is years late. The answer depends on characterising the wrong correctly. If what you complain of is the continuing operation or discharge, each day is a fresh breach and the six months run from a recent date. If what you complain of is really a single past decision or act, the reading against you may well succeed.

That is why the way the application is framed matters as much as the facts. The same dyeing unit can be challenged as 'established illegally in 2018', which invites a limitation objection, or as 'discharging untreated effluent without valid consent, as shown by the sample of last month', which describes a wrong happening now.

Continuing wrong or continuing effect of a past act?

This is the line on which most limitation arguments turn. A continuing wrong is one where the act itself continues: the discharge, the emission, the extraction, the dumping, the noise. A completed act with continuing effects is one where the act ended, but its consequences remain: a building that was completed, a tree that was felled, a wetland that was filled, a clearance that was granted.

Take two cases. In the first, a builder keeps pumping groundwater from borewells without an NOC to run a commercial complex. The extraction happens every day, so the wrong continues. In the second, a builder dug and used borewells during construction four years ago, sealed them, and finished the building. The aquifer may still be depleted, but the act ended. A complaint about the first is in time; a complaint about the second faces a real limitation problem, unless the damage is pursued as compensation within section 15's five years.

Effects still matter. Where the completed act created a situation that the respondent is under a duty to remedy, such as an obligation in an EC to restore land, the continuing failure to remedy may itself be a continuing wrong. Frame the case around that failing duty, not the original act.

Continuing or completed? How common situations usually fall

These are general tendencies, not rules. The tribunal looks at the facts of each case.

Recurring events: when each episode is a new cause of action

Some harms are not continuous but recur: a sugar mill whose effluent overflows every crushing season, a landfill that catches fire every summer, a quarry whose blasting cracks walls whenever a new face is opened, a blocked natural drain that floods a colony every monsoon. Each episode is a fresh event and can found a fresh cause of action, even if earlier episodes went unchallenged.

Document the latest episode carefully, because that is the one that brings you within time. Date-stamped photos, a newspaper report, a complaint lodged that week, a board inspection after the incident and a medical record from the same days all fix the date. Then show the pattern by listing earlier episodes, to prove this is not a one-off and that the respondent knew.

Recurring harm also strengthens the case for a structural remedy. A tribunal that sees four years of monsoon flooding is more likely to order the drain cleared and kept clear than to treat each flood as an isolated incident.

Fresh causes of action that restart the clock

Apart from continuing and recurring wrongs, a genuinely new event can create a new cause of action, even about an old activity. An expansion of production, a new line or stack, a change of raw material, a new waste pit, the start of night operations, or the grant of a fresh consent or permission all qualify. So does an authority's fresh decision, such as a renewed consent granted despite unresolved violations.

A new inspection or sample report is slightly different. It does not create a wrong by itself, but it proves that the wrong exists at a recent date, and so supports the claim that the cause of action is continuing. Board reports, joint inspection reports in other matters and RTI replies obtained in the last few months are often the most useful limitation evidence you can file. For how to get and present them, see our guide on using photos, lab reports and RTI replies as evidence in the NGT.

The provisions that decide limitation

Where the continuing cause of action argument does not work

It does not rescue a missed appeal. If a board closure direction, a consent refusal decided by the appellate authority or an environmental clearance was communicated months ago and no appeal was filed within 30 days plus 60, calling the consequences 'continuing' will not reopen the order. The remedy then lies elsewhere, such as an application about present violations of the clearance's conditions. Our guide on challenging an environmental clearance explains the appeal route and its deadline.

It does not convert a completed act into a continuing one. A tree felled is felled; a building finished is finished. The tribunal will look past framing that tries to describe an old act as ongoing, and an application built that way can attract a dismissal and costs.

It is weak where the applicant slept on rights for years while the respondent invested, built and got permissions. Even where the wrong technically continues, long unexplained delay counts against relief such as demolition, and the tribunal may prefer compensation or conditions. In matters where Advocate B.K. Singh is asked to file about pollution that began long ago, he looks first for the most recent provable violation, because that, not the history, is what carries the application past the preliminary objection.

Continuing damage and claims for compensation

Section 15 gives five years from when the cause of action first arose, which covers most compensation claims even without the continuing wrong argument. A farmer whose borewell turned saline three years ago because of an industry's discharge can still claim, if the link can be shown.

Where damage continues to accrue, such as crop losses every season from effluent in an irrigation channel, each season's loss can be presented with its own evidence. Claim for losses you can document, season by season, rather than a single round figure. Losses older than five years are hard to recover, and the tribunal will want proof of both the loss and its cause. Our page on compensation for pollution damage covers the evidence needed.

How to plead a continuing cause of action in your application

Give limitation its own paragraph, headed as such. State when the activity began, that it continues to date, and the latest dates on which it was observed or recorded, with annexure references. Say in one sentence that the cause of action is continuing and arises afresh every day the violation persists, and that the application is therefore within time under section 14. If the latest event is a recurring episode or a new event such as an expansion, name it and its date.

Then make the rest of the application match. Write the facts and grounds in the present tense where the wrong is present: 'the unit discharges', not 'the unit was established'. Ask for relief aimed at the present and future, such as stopping the discharge, inspection and restoration, rather than relief aimed only at undoing a past act. Where you are unsure, file a short application for condonation of delay in the alternative, setting out reasons and proof. Our guide to drafting an NGT Original Application shows where these paragraphs sit.

Evidence that shows the wrong is still continuing

How to check whether your case is still in time

Work through these before drafting. They tell you whether to rely on a continuing cause of action, a fresh event or a condonation application.

Common mistakes with limitation and continuing wrongs

• Leading with history. Opening the application with the year the unit was built invites the objection. Lead with what is happening now.
• No recent evidence. Claiming a continuing wrong with photos from three years ago undermines the claim.
• Using it to dodge an appeal deadline. A missed section 16 period cannot be revived this way.
• Dressing a completed act as ongoing. The tribunal sees through it, and costs may follow.
• Ignoring delay altogether. Even when technically in time, explain why you did not come earlier.
• Forgetting the alternative. Where the position is close, a condonation application filed with the case costs little.

Where to read next

For who to name in your application, read who should be made a respondent in an NGT case. If your real target is an order of the board or its appellate authority, see our page on appeals against pollution board orders, and if the High Court may suit better, read High Court writ or NGT case.

When you are ready to file, our NGT case filing team can look at your dates and evidence and tell you which limitation route your case actually rests on.