The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Union environmental ministry’s 2021 Office Memorandum (OM), which allowed retrospective approval for projects that had already commenced construction without environmental clearances (ECs), is most welcome. This judgment will go a long way towards protecting the environment, which is the shared legacy of all forms of life in the world. Humans have no exclusive right to damage it.
The judgment, delivered by a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi, is a fine piece of balanced opinion. It declared the 2021 OM illegal while allowing the Central government to grant ex post facto approvals to projects that are important in the public interest through statutory notifications.
The court, however, ruled that ex post facto environmental approvals for projects whose work had commenced without obtaining clearances under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, should be an exception and not the norm.
Under the 1986 law, the government must conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to study a project’s impact on the environment before granting approval. However, the 2021 OM, which has now been declared illegal, had become a well-laid-out mechanism for securing ex post facto approvals for various projects. By November 2025, more than 150 projects had been granted retrospective clearances, reflecting the magnitude of the violations of environmental law.
Environmental approval has been one of the most controversial subjects in the country since the introduction of the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in 2006. It had virtually become anathema to manufacturing and mining companies, which blamed it solely for slowing economic growth.
Then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi alleged corruption in the granting of environmental clearances, calling it a Jayanthi Natarajan tax, named after the then environment minister. After the BJP’s victory in 2014, the Narendra Modi government introduced a six-month, one-time amnesty scheme in March 2017 for securing retrospective approvals. In 2021, the Centre extended the amnesty facility indefinitely through an Office Memorandum.
When the 2021 OM was challenged, a two-judge Bench comprising Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan completely barred the granting of post-facto clearances in May 2025. As the judgment put more than 150 large projects at risk, the government and industry bodies appealed against the verdict.
In November 2025, a three-judge Bench comprising CJI BR Gavai, Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan recalled the May 2025 judgment and took up the matter for a fresh hearing, culminating in the present judgment.
After nearly two decades of twists and turns in environmental jurisprudence, the current judgment appears to be the most balanced one, as it underscores the importance of environmental impact assessments while recognising the need to give the government room to make informed exceptions for the greater public good.
The government should, however, ensure that officials do not resort to retrospective approvals as a matter of routine, while industry should design its projects to be in harmony with nature.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
