In a landmark ruling today, on May 16, the Supreme Court barred the Indian government from granting retrospective environmental clearances (ECs) in the future, striking down previous Office Memorandums (OMs) and notifications that permitted such approvals for mining and industrial projects.
The court ruled that projects initiated without mandatory prior environmental clearance cannot later be legalised, stressing that violators who knowingly bypassed regulations cannot claim legal protection.
Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, reading out the operative part of the judgment, stated that no leniency should be shown to corporations, real estate developers, public sector undertakings and mining industries that deliberately ignored environmental laws.
The bench explicitly prohibited the government from reintroducing any policy similar to the 2017 notification, which had allowed retrospective ECs.
The court also quashed the 2021 OM and all related circulars, declaring them unlawful. However, it clarified that ECs already granted under these provisions would remain unaffected.
The case arose from petitions filed by the non-government organisation Vanashakti and others, challenging the legality of two government memorandums issued in July 2021 and January 2022.
These OMs had established a mechanism to grant environmental clearance to projects that had commenced operations without prior approval under the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2006.
The petitioners argued that the memorandums violated the fundamental requirement of prior clearance — a term emphasised 34 times in the 2006 Notification — and weakened environmental protections.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had imposed an interim stay on the contested OMs in January 2024. The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change defended its position in a counter-affidavit, stating that the 2017 Notification had provided only a limited six-month window for violators to seek regularisation, which expired in September 2017.
The 2021 OM, it argued, was introduced to address ongoing violations not covered by earlier rules, ensuring such projects could be assessed for environmental damage under the 'polluter pays' principle. The government warned that denying regularisation could lead to large-scale demolitions, citing the environmental consequences seen in the 2021 demolition of the Supertech Twin Towers.
However, the court dismissed these arguments, reinforcing that environmental laws cannot be relaxed to accommodate unlawful projects.
The ruling strengthens the enforcement of prior environmental clearances, marking a significant step towards stricter ecological accountability.