The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023 published in the Gazette of India by the Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, was published on which date ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, 3rd August. The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023 received the President's assent on 3 August 2023 and was published in the Gazette of India the same day by the Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative Department) as Act No. 10 of 2023. Parliament had cleared it days earlier — the Lok Sabha passed the Bill on 25 July 2023 and the Rajya Sabha on 1 August 2023 — so assent and gazette publication followed within 48 hours of the Rajya Sabha vote.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) No stage of this law falls in June 2023. In mid-June the amendment Bill had not been passed by either House — the Lok Sabha took it up only in the monsoon session in July.  (b) A near-miss built on the same day-number as the correct answer, one month early. The Bill was still before Parliament in early July; it could not have been assented to or gazetted then.  (d) Too late. By 13 September 2023 the Act had already been on the statute book for nearly six weeks — assent and Gazette publication were both on 3 August 2023.

Concept: The parent law is the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, India's statute for meeting its obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) and, later, the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing (2010). It created a three-tier structure: the National Biodiversity Authority at Chennai, State Biodiversity Boards, and Biodiversity Management Committees at the local-body level, which maintain People's Biodiversity Registers. The 2023 amendment is the first substantial rewrite of that Act.

State PCS 2025 Q92 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer

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