At a time when ‘Har Ghar Jal’ is celebrated as a milestone in public welfare, the Supreme Court’s refusal, in December 2025, to hear a public interest litigation on bottled drinking water standards should give us all pause. The court’s characterisation of the plea as ‘luxury litigation’ – something unworthy of judicial time when people still lack basic drinking water – unintentionally exposes the chasm between policy narratives and lived realities in India.The case in question involved a petition urging the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to revise permissible levels of antimony and Diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) in packaged drinking water to align more closely with international benchmarks.These substances are not esoteric pollutants found only in laboratory texts. They are chemicals used in plastics, specifically PET bottles, that leach into packaged water and are associated with documented risks to cardiovascular and respiratory health, among other outcomes. Effectively, like the ‘added minerals’ in water, these chemicals are introduced through the packaging – though, unlike the former, they are never advertised.Yet when presented with scientific concerns linked to everyday health, the Chief Justice responded with rhetorical questions about where India’s drinking water even is and whether bottled water standards matter when people are supposedly thirsty for any water at all. Terms such as ‘urban-centric approach’ and ‘rich and urbanised phobia’ were invoked to deny the case a hearing. The implication was clear: only the privileged worry about the quality of bottled water; for everyone else, survival trumps all.It is important to note that the plea did not seek to elevate packaged water above public supply, but to ensure that where the state permits its sale, it protects public health from preventable harm.However, this judicial rhetoric is striking when placed alongside the government’s own claims on water access. According to official figures, more than 81% of rural households now reportedly receive clean tap water under the Jal Jeevan Mission. The court’s assertion that drinking water itself remains largely unavailable directly unsettles that claim. The contradiction is difficult to ignore. If access has indeed expanded so dramatically, why is the assurance of safety framed as premature?And if the reality is still so dire that safe water can be dismissed as a luxury, then the triumphal narrative surrounding ‘Har Ghar Jal’ deserves far greater scrutiny. In characterising the petition as detached from India’s realities, the court inadvertently raises a more uncomfortable question – not about elitism, but about which version of reality we are meant to believe. The point here is not to adjudicate the success or failure of the Jal Jeevan Mission, but to underline the inconsistency in institutional narratives.The court’s framing inadvertently imposes a problematic binary: basic water access versus water quality. In that sense, the court’s logic is akin to suggesting that we should stop inspecting the safety of buses because some people still walk long distances to work. Or telling people in Haryana or Uttar Pradesh who are worried about air pollution that their concerns are elitist because Delhi breathes even dirtier air. The existence of a larger crisis cannot justify ignoring preventable harm.Moreover, the idea that ‘rural’ or ‘poor’ citizens are somehow insulated from quality issues because they depend on groundwater or public sources – and that ‘nothing happens to them’ – is equally troubling. The ongoing water crisis in Indore, which has reportedly claimed around ten lives, tells a different story.Also read: Happy New Year, Jal Jeevan Mission IndiaGroundwater contamination – from agricultural runoff to industrial pollutants – as well as fluoride, arsenic and uranium toxicity in water is a well documented crisis in many parts of the country, affecting public health in both rural and urban populations alike. Simply put, public health risks do not respect simplistic classifications of rural versus urban; they accumulate where oversight is weak and standards are lax.The Supreme Court’s comments also reflect a larger cultural tension about who gets to define what counts as a legitimate concern. Labelling a petition focused on water quality standards as elitist or urban-centric risks silencing valid scientific and legal questions about health and safety. To suggest that the state’s obligation to protect public health is dispensable until basic access is perfected deprives statutory frameworks of their meaning. This framing also overlooks the reality of water consumption today.India’s packaged drinking water market is worth approximately USD 3.6 billion and market research firms project it will reach USD 6.5 billion by 2032 and it is not confined to urban elites. A significant share of its consumers are in rural and semi-rural areas, often turning to packaged water (in the unorganised sector) precisely because other sources are unreliable or unsafe.Notably, none of the Chief Justice’s oral observations found their way into the final order. The order merely records that the ‘petitioner seeks and is permitted to withdraw this Writ Petition with liberty to represent to the competent authority’. This quiet procedural closure raises uncomfortable questions. If the court’s remarks about ‘luxury litigation’ and ground realities were legally sound, why were they not reflected in the order? And if they were not, what purpose did they serve?Similarly, when a petition is withdrawn in the face of judicial commentary, it compels us to ask whether the withdrawal was truly voluntary and what such courtroom signals mean for the future of public interest litigation that challenges regulatory complacency amid deteriorating public health conditions.After all, the petitioners’ demand in this case was neither radical nor detached from Indian law. Section 18(2) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 explicitly requires that food safety standards in India be framed with due regard to international standards and practices where they exist, unless there is a clear scientific justification for deviation or a conscious choice to adopt a different level of protection. This was among the several substantive arguments in the petition.Chapter 11 of the Food Safety Act, 2006, clearly stating the scientific and empirical approach to be adopted in safety standards. Source: IndiaCode.nic.inUltimately, by treating safety as a concern that must wait its turn, the court normalises a hierarchy of rights in which protection from preventable harm becomes optional – not foundational. This was a question of whether the law recognises safe drinking water as a basic expectation wherever it is consumed.