Supreme Court Clarifies Powers on Environmental Clearance for Non-Compliant Projects
A three-judge Supreme Court bench has reaffirmed that prior environmental clearance under the 2006 Environmental Impact Assessment Notification is mandatory for all projects. The court ruled that projects commenced without prior clearance cannot ordinarily be regularised unless a valid statutory notification permits otherwise.
The bench, led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, examined a batch of petitions challenging a 2021 Office Memorandum by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change that allowed consideration of clearance applications for projects already underway without prior approval. The court held that the Centre retains power to issue narrowly-tailored, one-time amnesty notifications under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, where larger public interest warrants it.
The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, by decriminalising certain environmental contraventions, reinforces this authority to frame limited amnesty schemes for non-compliant projects, the bench clarified.
