SC bins Centre’s post-facto green nod
Supreme Court strikes down the Union environment ministry’s 2021 office memo that let violators seek ‘ex post facto’ clearances. Prospective only: past ECs largely left standing; no more applications under the 2017 route. If Delhi wants a backdoor, it needs a law door.
The Supreme Court has barred fresh applications under the post-facto clearance route.
The Supreme Court has quashed the Environment Ministry’s July 7, 2021 office memorandum that let projects which started without prior approval seek “ex post facto” environmental clearance — calling the OM “completely arbitrary and illegal.” According to the Court’s record, the OM did not even claim authority under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 or its rules, and tried to run a perpetual amnesty through an administrative instruction.
This arrives after a detour. The Court first struck down the 2017 “violation” route and the 2021 OM in Vanashakti last May; then recalled that ruling on November 18, 2025 for a fresh hearing; and has now landed the finish: the 2021 OM is out, future post-facto clearances cannot be cooked up by OM, and any such path, if the Union insists, must be by a valid statutory notification under Section 3 of the 1986 Act — not a memo.
Two guardrails matter for states: the judgment operates prospectively and shields clearances already granted under the 2017/2021 regime, but bars any further applications under it. Translation: no new queue-jumping in the name of “regularisation,” and pending hopes without an EC are just that — hopes.
For Telangana, which has seen projects wait years for prior EC while serial offenders elsewhere sought blessings after breaking ground, the signal is overdue: environmental violations are to be dealt with “heavy hands,” not paperwork pardons. The BJP-led Centre wrote itself a free pass by OM; the Court has sent it back to Parliament, where shortcuts read as what they are: shortcuts.