Supreme Court nullifies 2021 environmental clearance order

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has struck down a 2021 government policy that established a system for granting environmental clearances to projects that had already begun construction or operation without prior approval. The unanimous verdict, delivered on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, by a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, found the administrative order unconstitutional but applied the decision prospectively to protect numerous ongoing public infrastructure projects.

The court quashed the 2021 Office Memorandum, ruling that it created an impermissible "perpetual amnesty scheme" that circumvented the mandatory prior environmental clearance regime established by a 2006 notification. The bench held that such a significant alteration to environmental law could not be achieved through a mere administrative instruction but would require a valid statutory notification issued under the Environment Protection Act of 1986. Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who authored the judgment, stated that the memorandum failed to establish clear criteria for selecting projects and violated constitutional guarantees of equality and the right to life, which includes a clean environment.