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Courts, tribunals and environmental jurisprudence

The environmental judgments of the courts and the National Green Tribunal, principles such as polluter pays and precaution, and climate litigation. Prelims has asked how the National Green Tribunal differs from the Central Pollution Control Board.

Foundation note: The National Green Tribunal and the pollution boards

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Aravalli High Powered Committee

Prelims and Mains

LeadThe Aravallis: a definition before the Supreme CourtJune 2026

Why in news

By an order of 25 May 2026 the Supreme Court set up a High Powered Committee to review the definition of the Aravalli hills that it had accepted in November 2025, and barred fresh mining leases until a management plan is ready.

Background

The Aravallis are among the oldest fold mountains in the world. They run about 700 km across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi.

They stand between the Thar desert and the northern plains, slowing the eastward spread of sand.
Their fractured rock lets rain soak in, so they recharge groundwater for the region around Delhi.
They hold building stone and minerals, which is why mining has eaten into them for decades.

The definition and why it matters

What the law protects depends on what counts as Aravalli.
In November 2025 the Court accepted the Environment Ministry's definition: a hill is one that rises 100 metres or more, and a range is two or more such hills within 500 metres.
The Forest Survey of India takes a wider view: any land higher than its surroundings in the Aravalli region, since even low hills stop sand.
A height test leaves the low hills and the gaps between them open to mining.

What the Court has now ordered

A committee under the Director General of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) will review the definition.
ICFRE will prepare a management plan for sustainable mining, on the model of the plan for the Saranda forest.

No fresh mining lease may be granted until then.
The plan is to cover the whole range, across the States.

The larger argument

Campaigners say a definition is not a precondition for conservation: the Western Ghats were protected through administrative units, without first defining a hill.
They ask for the whole range to be treated as a critical ecological zone, with miners liable under the polluter pays principle.

States point to the livelihoods and revenue that mining brings.

The way forward

Define the Aravallis by ecological function, not by height alone.
Map and protect the low hills and gaps, which do the work of stopping sand.
Restore mined land, as the Aravalli Green Wall initiative aims to do.

Prelims facts

The Aravallis run through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi.
The accepted definition uses a height of 100 metres.
The review committee is headed by the Director General of ICFRE.
The Saranda forest, the model for the mining plan, is in Jharkhand.

Open the lead on its own page

The High Powered Committee was constituted by the Supreme Court in a suo motu case to examine the Aravalli hills across Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat as a single unit rather than State by State. The committee was constituted on 25 May 2026 under the Director General of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education and was to report before 31 August 2026.

The Aravalli question

1992
Notification on the Aravallis
2002
Supreme Court recognises a contiguous ecosystem
2010
Rajasthan's definition of 100 m rejected
2018
FSI finds 31 of 128 hills in Alwar have vanished
November 2025
Supreme Court accepts the ministry's definition
May 2026
Supreme Court constitutes a committee to review it

The definition has been argued over for three decades, and the court reopened the one it had accepted within six months.Source: Frontline, 27 June 2026

What changed

27 Jun 2026LeadThe Aravallis: a definition before the Supreme Court

Climate litigation

Prelims and Mains

Climate litigation is the use of courts to hold governments and companies to climate obligations.

In India the Supreme Court read a right against the adverse effects of climate change into Articles 14 and 21 in March 2024.

What changed

26 Jun 2026BriefThe Paris Judicial Court ruled that climate risks fall within France's 2017 duty of vigilance law. It gave TotalEnergies six months to include end user emissions, Scope 3, in its vigilance plan, but declined to order a halt to new fossil projects. The Hindu, 26 Jun 2026: French Court orders TotalEnergies to account for clients' emissions (opens in a new tab) · Frontline, 3 Jul 2026: A Paris court held that a company's statutory duty of vigilance extends to the emissions from the use of the products it sells, and placed a corporate emissions plan under judicial supervision. (opens in a new tab)

Occupier, not owner: liability for a tenant's pollution

Prelims

A State pollution board can levy interim environmental damage compensation under Section 33A of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 on the occupier of a polluting premises.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has held that liability falls on the actual occupier, not the owner merely because he owns the premises.

What changed

8 Jun 2026BriefThe Supreme Court dismissed the Gujarat Pollution Control Board's appeal and upheld the NGT's November 2025 order that a property owner is not liable for a tenant's pollution. The tenant ran an unauthorised dye unit in Surat discharging effluent above limits. The Hindu, 8 Jun 2026: SC upholds NGT order absolving landlord of liability for tenant's environmental violations (opens in a new tab)

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