Congress leader Jairam Ramesh did not wait for the ink to dry on the Supreme Court’s latest move: a 2:1 decision to recall its own judgment that had barred the Centre from granting post-facto environmental clearances.
“It is most disappointing that the outgoing Chief Justice of India has opened a door for a review of the May 16, 2025, judgment of the two judge bench of the Supreme Court that had barred retrospective environmental approvals,” Ramesh wrote on X (formerly Twitter) soon after the news of the judgment broke.
His comments came as the Supreme Court, by a 2:1 majority on Tuesday, recalled its own 16 May Vanashakti judgment.
The majority decision, written by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran, places the contentious question before a new bench.
Justice Ujjal Bhuyan delivered the lone dissent. He was also part of the original judgment that the court has now pulled back.
CJI Gavai pointed to the Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd. decision of 2020, where the Supreme Court held that post-facto clearances should not be issued “normally,” yet regularised violations by imposing monetary penalties.
He also noted the government’s 2017 and 2021 Office Memoranda. These, he said, allowed clearances only for “permissible activities.” If the court were to strike them down, the only option would be to tear down all structures built in violation.
The CJI warned of consequences.
“Public projects of Rs 20,000 crore will have to be demolished if the clearance is not reviewed,” he said in court. Demolition, he argued, would worsen pollution, not reduce it.
Justice Bhuyan disagreed.
He wrote that “there is no concept of ex-post facto environmental clearance in environmental law,” calling the very idea “an anathema, a curse devoted to evil, to environmental jurisprudence.”
The detailed judgment is awaited.
Ramesh’s criticism drew force from recent court actions that seemed to go the other way.
He noted that only a day earlier, the same Chief Justice of India had ordered Uttarakhand to restore the Corbett Tiger Reserve, where about 6,000 trees were illegally felled last year.
The bench had directed all unauthorised structures to be demolished within three months. Only eco-tourism is to be permitted going forward. “In a nutshell, we have held that if tourism has to be promoted, it has to be eco-tourism,” the CJI had said.
The court’s Central Empowered Committee will supervise the restoration. The bench also issued directions on tiger safaris, establishment of rescue centres and limits on vehicle numbers.
A day before the Corbett ruling, the Supreme Court had imposed a nationwide ban on mining within a kilometre of any national park or sanctuary. It asked states to re-evaluate existing leases. Those falling inside the restricted zone must be modified or canceled.
Noise, pollution and habitat fragmentation were named as key threats.
Ramesh referred to these orders to highlight what he saw as inconsistency.
“…This decision of the Chief Justice is doubly disappointing since just yesterday he had directed the Uttarakhand Govt to restore and repair ecological damage at the Corbett Tiger Reserve…he wrote.
At the core of the debate is the practice that Vanashakti tried to end: companies seeking environmental approvals after they have already begun construction, excavation or production.
“Retrospective environmental clearances are sought deliberately by companies who are well aware of the laws but still violate them knowingly with a ‘baadme dekha jayega’ attitude,” Ramesh wrote on X. “Retrospective approvals are bad in law and make a mockery of governance.”
He argued that penalties “howsoever heavy” cannot solve the problem, as they merely regularise law-breaking.
The 16 May judgment had agreed with this position.