Supreme Court rejects Jairam Ramesh’s plea against retrospective environmental clearances

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a writ petition filed by Congress MP Jairam Ramesh against the government’s decision to grant environmental clearances to development projects after they had already begun, Live Law reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi questioned how a writ petition could be filed, considering the court had already approved the policy in November after it reversed a May ruling that had disallowed such clearances.

In a 2:1 decision in November, the court recalled its May judgement that had declared such post-facto approvals illegal. The majority said that the earlier judgment would have required the demolition of many buildings and public projects that had been approved through ex post facto clearances over the years.

BR Gavai, the chief justice at the time, had said that several of these projects were worth more than Rs 20,000 crore and that destroying them now would cause more environmental harm than good.

On Thursday, the court questioned the purpose of the petition before it by saying it amounted to indirectly filing a review petition of its judgement, Live Law reported.

“If you are aggrieved by the judgement, then you know your remedy,” PTI quoted the bench as saying. “How can you seek a review of a judgement in a writ petition?”

“Have you filed this for media publicity,” the chief justice asked while warning that the court would impose high costs on such petitions.

Following this, Ramesh’s counsel chose to withdraw the writ petition with liberty to avail remedy in accordance with law, Live Law reported.

The May judgement had restrained the Union government from granting ex post facto clearances in any form to regularise illegal constructions.

The court had struck down a 2017 notification and a 2021 Office Memorandum that allowed the government to grant post-facto environmental clearances, calling these and related circulars and orders illegal and arbitrary.

However, the bench had clarified at the time that environmental clearances already granted under the 2017 notification and the 2021 Office Memorandum would continue to remain valid.