Subhas Datta

Datta has been recognized and awarded as a Kolkata Hero by the Times of India Group in the year 2013.

Subhas Datta is an environmental activist, and has been so for over three decades. He is a qualified chartered accountant by profession. Since 1995, Datta has aired the grievances of the masses before the judicial forum through filing Public Interest Litigation (PIL).

In 1995, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed before the Supreme Court of India regarding Howrah city’s environmental issues and based on this petition the first Green Bench of the country in any High Court was set up in the Calcutta High Court. From 1995 to date Datta is ventilating the grievances of the masses before the judicial forum through filing the Public Interest Litigations (PIL). On PIL matters, Datta gets the information first, collects the related documents on the subject, verifies the information, visits the locations, takes photographs, drafts the petition, files the PIL and makes the submissions before the Court. Datta has so far moved the highest number of PILs in the country filed before the Supreme Court of India and the High Court at Calcutta.

Subhas Datta's work in environmental activism began in 1977, when the tree plantation programme was initiated. In 2004 on the basis of his petition before the Green Bench of the High Court at Calcutta, the Act in the name and style of West Bengal Trees (Protection and Conservation in Non-Forest Areas) Act, 2006 was passed. The purpose of the act was to save trees in the non-forest areas of the State.