Environment activists, policy makers and domain experts have welcomed the recent Supreme Court decision barring the Union government from granting retrospective environmental clearance. However, they warned that loopholes in environmental laws still exist, and citizens must stay alert to protect their constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court on Friday, 16 May, said the right to live in a pollution-free atmosphere was a part of the fundamental right of citizens and struck down the Centre’s office memorandum allowing ex post facto or retrospective environmental clearances to projects in violation of norms.
In scathing remarks against the government, a bench comprising Justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said in its judgement, “The Union Government, as much as individual citizens, has a constitutional obligation to protect the environment.”
The judgement came in response to petitions filed by the NGO Vanashakti and others, challenging two government office memorandums issued in July 2021 and January 2022 which had created a system to grant environmental clearance to projects that began operations without prior approval under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006.
Declaring the 2021 office memorandum (OM) and related circulars “arbitrary, illegal, and contrary to the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986” the court said it “must come down very heavily” on the Centre’s attempt to do “something which is completely prohibited under the law”.
The court said projects started without mandatory prior environmental clearance cannot be legalised later and violators who knowingly ignored the law cannot be protected.
Vanashakti director Stalin D. told PTI that citizens must now ensure that the court's directions are followed. “The judgement clearly says the government cannot try and provide a safe haven for violators. So, we have to ensure that our constitutional framework is not violated in any way.”
Prakriti Srivastava, a retired Indian Forest Service officer, wondered whether the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change will obey the SC orders. “Let’s wait and watch. Knowing the record of MoEFCC, they give two hoots for SC orders and may blatantly disregard them,” she added.
Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, said there were some loopholes like the absence of a credible monitoring system. Also, he added, “the Supreme Court needs to put down more stipulations that you cannot acquire land without environmental clearance because once you acquire the land, then you get the right over the land and you can do what you want to do with it, which is again movement towards irreversibility.”
In the judgement, the judges illustrated the drastic consequences of large-scale environmental degradation on human lives in Delhi and several other cities. “At least for a span of two months every year, the residents of Delhi suffocate due to air pollution. The AQI level is either dangerous or very dangerous … The other leading cities are not far behind. The air and water pollution in the cities is ever increasing,” they said.
Congress MP and general-secretary (communications) and former Union environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, welcomed the verdict and said it was a “damning indictment” of the Modi government whose domestic walk is completely at variance with its global talk on environmental protection.
“In a landmark decision reaffirming the principles and practices of sustainable development, the Hon’ble Supreme Court on May 16, 2025 struck down the Modi Government’s measures enabling the grant of ex-post facto environmental clearances. It declared such clearances illogical and illegal,” Ramesh said on X.
With PTI inputs
