Supreme Court forms high-powered expert panel to re-examine Aravalli definition

Subscribed with another email? Logout and Login with that one. Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective. First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming. Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day. Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers THEdge At the cutting edge of education and careers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there Gender Agenda Stories from beyond the binary. The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. Updated - June 03, 2026 11:42 am IST - New Delhi An aerial view of the Aravalli Range in Haryana in December 2025. | Photo Credit: ANI The Supreme Court has constituted a high-powered committee to conduct an independent review of the Centre’s report on the definition and delineation of the Aravalli hill range and directed the panel to address what it described as “critical ambiguities” in the findings. The committee headed by Kanchan Devi, Director General of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), has been directed to submit a comprehensive report by August 31, 2026. The move comes months after the apex court, on December 29, stayed the implementation of an October 2025 report prepared by a committee chaired by the Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The Court had then emphasised the need for an independent body of domain experts to undertake a fresh scientific and ecological assessment. In its order, the Court observed that a “fair, impartial and independent expert opinion” was necessary after consulting all relevant stakeholders to provide definitive guidance on several contentious issues relating to the protection of the Aravalli ecosystem. The newly constituted high-powered committee (HPC) will be chaired ex-officio by Kanchan Devi, a 1991-batch Indian Forest Service officer, an autonomous institution functioning under the Environment Ministry. What is the Aravali safari park project? | Explained Aravallis being gobbled up by land developers The committee’s members include Dr. Subhash Ashutosh, former Director General of the Forest Survey of India; Dr. Rajendra Kumar Sharma, former Director of the Geological Survey of India; Brij Mohan Singh Rathore, former Joint Secretary in the Environment Ministry; and Prof. Ashok K. Bhatnagar, former Head of the Department of Botany at Delhi University. The Court also appointed Professor Jagdish Krishnaswamy of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru, and Prof. Laxmikant Sharma of the Central University of Haryana as special invitees who may be associated with the committee’s work by the chairperson as required. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has been directed to nominate an officer of the rank of Director to serve as the committee’s Member Secretary. The HPC has been tasked with examining several key questions arising from the October 2025 report. Aravalli row: Won't pass order in favour of mining lease holders for now, says Supreme Court The Huddle to look at Aravallis, Nicobar, and India’s development debate Supreme Court considers bigger public participation in defining Aravalli Aravalli row: Supreme Court asks Environment Ministry, others to suggest names of domain experts for panel Among them is whether limiting the definition of the Aravalli range to areas located within 500 metres between two or more hills substantially narrows the extent of protected territory and could facilitate continued mining and other environmentally disruptive activities. The committee will also examine whether the Aravalli hills with elevations of 100 metres and above constitute a continuous ecological formation even when separated by distances greater than the proposed 500-metre threshold and whether mining activities should be permitted in such intervening gaps. Another issue flagged by the court concerns the report’s assertion that only 1,048 of Rajasthan’s 12,081 hills satisfy the 100-metre elevation criterion. The HPC has been asked to determine whether this assessment is scientifically and factually accurate and whether it would leave a large number of lower-elevation hill formations without environmental protection. The panel will further evaluate whether existing regulatory mechanisms contain significant gaps that warrant an exhaustive scientific and geological investigation of the Aravalli system. The constitution of the HPC follows consultations among parties before the court. During the last hearing on May 25, the Centre informed the Bench that four experts whose names appeared in the recommendations

Supreme Court forms high-powered expert panel to re-examine Aravalli definition

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Supreme Court forms high-powered expert panel to re-examine Aravalli definition

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