The Supreme Court on Friday set aside a 2017 central government notification and a related office memorandum (OM) that allowed granting ex-post facto or retrospective environmental clearances (ECs) for projects.
A bench of Justices A S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan also restrained the government from issuing any such notification in the future, but made it clear that clearances already granted will remain unaffected.
“There are no equities in favour of those who committed gross illegalities without obtaining prior ECs. The persons who acted without ECs were not illiterate persons. They are companies, real estate developers, public sector undertakings, mining industries etc. They were the persons who knowingly committed the illegalities,” the Supreme Court said.
The bench added, “We therefore make it clear that hereafter the Central Government shall not come out with any version of the 2017 notification which provides for grant of ex-post facto environmental clearance. We have also set aside the 2021 Office Memorandum (OM). We hold that the 2017 notification and the 2021 OM, as well as all circulars, orders, and notifications issued for giving effect to these notifications are illegal and hereby struck down. We restrain the Central Government from issuing circulars, orders, notifications, OMs providing for grant of ex-post facto EC in any form or manner.”
The court clarified that “ECs already granted under the 2017 notification and the 2021 OM shall remain unaffected”.
The court was hearing a clutch of petitions, including one by -based NGO Vanashakti, which contended that the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, mandates “prior environmental clearance” before the start of a project, and that this cannot be modified.
Earlier, hearing a plea by Vanashakti, the Supreme Court had stayed two office memoranda of the Union environment ministry that had allowed projects to seek retrospective environmental clearance.
