The judgment clarifies that the commission possesses the explicit authority to carry out a Special Intensive Revision under Article 324 of the Constitution, read in conjunction with the relevant provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the associated regulatory rules.

The legal dispute originated from a series of writ petitions led by Association for Democratic Reforms and Others versus Election Commission of India, filed under Writ Petition (Civil) No. 640 of 2025. The petitioners challenged an administrative notification issued by the commission in June of the preceding year, which authorised a state-wide Special Intensive Revision across the State of Bihar. The petitioners argued that the revision framework resulted in arbitrary mass exclusions and operated as an unconstitutional verification process. However, the Supreme Court rejected these contentions, ruling that the documentation rules and the deletion protocols implemented during the revision were compliant with statutory safeguards and did not violate constitutional principles.

The historical and philosophical framework of the electoral roll

In the text of the judgment, Chief Justice Surya Kant examined the historical development of public membership and democratic franchise within the Indian sub-continent to contextualise the current statutory framework. The court observed that the establishment of an accurate and verifiable record of eligible electors is a structural prerequisite for any representative government before votes can be cast or counted. The electoral roll functions as the legal definition of the political community, meaning its composition directly influences the integrity, accuracy, and credibility of the entire democratic architecture.

The judgment traced the evolution of collective governance mechanisms back to ancient historical records, referencing the administrative and social structures of Bihar during the era of the Mahajanapadas in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. The court noted that while certain neighbouring territories such as Magadha and Anga operated under monarchical systems, the Vajji confederacy, centred at Vaishali, maintained a system of republican and quasi-republican institutions. Relying on primary historical records, including the Mahaparinibbāna Sutta, the court highlighted that the Vajjis regularised governance through frequent public assemblies, conducted their administrative affairs in institutional concord, and adhered to established customary rules. While these ancient systems did not employ modern methods of adult franchise or formalised voter registries, they established early historical precedents for defining public membership and maintaining structured processes for community deliberation.

The formal statutory formalisation of the electoral registry in modern Indian history emerged under the British colonial administration through the enactment of the Government of India Act, 1935. The Sixth Schedule of the 1935 Act introduced a structured legal system for preparing and revising electoral rolls across defined territorial constituencies based on a specific qualifying date. Although the colonial model enforced an exclusionary franchise restricted by property ownership, educational qualifications, and separate communal electorates, it standardised the administrative transition of voter registration into a formalised statutory regime.

The adoption of the Constitution of India established a complete break from the colonial administrative model. The Constituent Assembly debates held on June 15 and June 16, 1949, regarding Draft Article 289—which was subsequently enacted as Articles 324, 325, and 326—demonstrate that the framers intended to insulate the election machinery entirely from executive interference. The assembly implemented a single, general electoral roll for every territorial constituency, abolished communal electorates, and established universal adult franchise. Under Part XV of the Constitution, the electoral roll was transformed into an instrument of universal political participation, placed under the superintendence, direction, and control of an independent constitutional authority.

Background

The immediate factual basis for the litigation arose on June 24, 2025, when the Election Commission of India issued an order mandating a state-wide Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls across all Assembly constituencies in Bihar. In its recorded statement of reasons, the commission noted that the last intensive house-to-house revision in Bihar had been executed twenty-two years prior, in 2003. In the intervening period, the state’s electoral lists had been updated exclusively through annual summary revisions. The commission determined that this prolonged interval, combined with rapid urbanisation, intra-state and inter-state migration, and unreported voter deaths, had introduced significant duplications, omissions, and inaccuracies into the existing registries.

The administrative framework established by the commission for the execution of the Special Intensive Revision included several specific components that became the primary subjects of the legal challenge. The commission designated the electoral roll compiled during the 2003 intensive revision as the baseline probative evidence for verifying residency and eligibility. Individuals currently residing in Bihar whose names were absent from the 2003 baseline roll were required to provide prescribed government documentation to confirm their status as eligible electors. The commission deployed Booth Level Officers to conduct house-to-house physical visits to distribute a standardised Enumeration Form, which electors were required to complete and submit within a specified timeframe. The administrative directive noted that failure to submit the form would result in exclusion from the initial draft electoral roll.

Upon the publication of the draft electoral roll-on August 1, 2025, the registry showed a significant mathematical decrease. Prior to the initiation of the drive, the total number of registered electors in Bihar stood at approximately 7.89 crore. The published draft roll recorded 7.24 crore electors, clearly pointing to the fact that nearly 65 lakh individuals had been omitted at the draft stage due to the non-submission or non-collection of the Enumeration Forms. This large-scale omission led to immediate legal challenges under Article 32 of the Constitution by the Association for Democratic Reforms, political activist Yogendra Yadav, and members of Parliament including Mahua Moitra, Manoj Jha, KC Venugopal, and Supriya Sule, who asserted that the procedure was structurally flawed and lacked clear statutory authorisation.

Chronology of interim judicial orders and safeguards

The Supreme Court did not stay the ongoing administrative process but instead issued a series of interim directions during July, August, and September 2025 to introduce procedural safeguards and maintain maximum inclusivity during the revision drive. In its initial order dated July 10, 2025, the court framed three core inquiries regarding the statutory basis of the drive, the specific methods used to verify eligibility, and the administrative appropriateness of the timing given the upcoming late 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections. To prevent unintended exclusions, the court ordered the commission to expand its list of acceptable documents to include Aadhaar Cards, Electors Photo Identity Cards, and Ration Cards as valid proof of identity and residence.

Following the disclosure that 65 lakh individuals were absent from the draft roll, the apex court issued an order on August 14, 2025, directing the commission to compile and publicly publish the complete list of omitted names along with the specific technical or clerical reasons for each omission. The court mandated that this list be given wide publicity through print newspapers, television channels, and radio broadcasts to ensure that affected individuals could file rectification claims. To ensure field-level assistance, the court’s order dated August 22, 2025, impleaded twelve recognised national and state political parties as respondents, directing them to utilise their Booth Level Agents to canvas local areas and assist omitted individuals in navigating the claims process.

On September 1, 2025, the court recorded a formal clarification from the commission that the claims, objections, and corrections window would remain functional continuously until the final date for filing election nominations. The court also directed the Chairman of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to deploy para-legal volunteers across all District Legal Services Authorities to provide free technological and legal assistance to individuals filing claims. In a subsequent order on September 8, 2025, the court defined the evidentiary status of the Aadhaar Card within the revision framework. The court observed that while an Aadhaar Card does not constitute proof of citizenship under the Aadhaar Act, 2016, Section 23(4) of the Representation of the People Act expressly authorises its use for establishing a voter’s identity. The court formally designated the Aadhaar Card as an additional acceptable document for electoral roll verification, while reserving the right of registration officials to seek secondary verification if the genuineness of a claim was in doubt.

The commission issued an official press release on September 30, 2025, marking the final conclusion of the Special Intensive Revision drive in Bihar. The final data revealed that from the 7.24 crore draft roll base, 3.66 lakh names were permanently removed following detailed statutory verification, while 21.53 lakh eligible electors (Form 6) were successfully added through the claims and objections mechanism. (Note: Form 6 is a procedural form available to first-time voters and those who have shifted from their original locations where they were registered as electors to a new address)

The addition of 21.53 lakh electors through the Form 6 procedure only partially explains the reduction from the pre-revision figure of 7.89 crore electors to the finalised roll of 7.42 crore. Even after accounting for 3.66 lakh deletions and 21.53 lakh additions (total movement: 25.19 lakh voters/electors), an unexplained variance of approximately 21.81 lakh electors still remains. Therefore, the figures disclosed do not mathematically reconcile with the final electoral database. It is necessary to specifically question and seek clarification regarding this substantial unexplained gap, as the published data presently appears internally inconsistent and incomplete.

This revised roll with 7.42 Crore electors was subsequently utilised to conduct the Bihar Legislative Assembly elections in November 2025, with the final results declared on November 14, 2025, after which the Supreme Court proceeded to resolve the outstanding constitutional questions.

(Editor’s Note: While this piece, reports on the May 27 judgement of the SC, we shall soon be carrying subsequent pieces, bringing back to our readers, the procedural flaws, inconsistencies and other lapses in the Bihar 2025 SIR process, so that the judicial adjudication does not wipe out the widespread inconsistencies in procedure and law that the Election Commission of India indulged in)

Meanwhile readers may refer and read to the articles related to the Vote for Democracy’s report on the Bihar SIR here, and here.

The actual VFD Bihar Elections 2025 report may be accessed here.

Constitutional and statutory arguments of the petitioners

The petitioners, represented by a panel of senior counsel including Kapil Sibal, Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Prashant Bhushan, and Vrinda Grover, mounted a broad constitutional challenge against the validity of the Special Intensive Revision. Their primary argument was that the exercise altered the statutory framework of electoral roll maintenance by turning the commission into a de facto citizenship adjudicator. They contended that existing electoral registration laws do not empower the commission to compel individuals who are already registered on the rolls to newly re-establish their citizenship through fresh documentary proof. Questions regarding nationality, they argued, must be addressed exclusively through the mechanisms provided under the Citizenship Act, 1955, rather than an electoral enumeration drive.

The petitioners characterised the Special Intensive Revision as an NRC-like exercise, asserting that it inverted established legal principles by creating a presumption of ineligibility and shifting the entire evidentiary burden onto individual voters. Counsel argued that the process created a state of suspended citizenship, wherein individuals excluded from the draft roll were effectively deprived of core democratic participation rights prior to any formal adjudication of their legal status by a competent statutory authority. They also challenged the statutory basis of the verification forms, arguing that the specific enumeration forms distributed by the commission lacked explicit backing under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, or the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

Regarding the geographic scope of the commission’s powers, the petitioners argued that Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, does not authorise a simultaneous, state-wide or multi-state intensive revision drive. They highlighted that the text of the provision explicitly allows for a special revision for “any constituency or part of a constituency,” which they interpreted as a requirement for targeted, localised, and exceptional interventions rather than broad, state-wide programs. They further argued that the commission had failed to disclose specific, localised data justifying the revision for each individual constituency, rendering the exercise arbitrary. Finally, the petitioners relied on Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer, (1995) 3 SCC 100, arguing that prior inclusion in an electoral registry creates a legal presumption of eligibility that cannot be set aside without an individualised objection and a specific burden of proof placed on the objector.

Distinguishing factors and rationale for departure

The judgment distinguishes the application of the seminal Lal Babu Hussain Judgement precedent based on the following factual and structural differences:

• Adjudicatory vs. inquisitorial framework: The rules in Lal Babu Hussain were formulated to govern localised, individual deletion proceedings where specific names were singled out based on “selective objections.” In contrast, according to the SC in the present judgement, a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, is a systemic, inquisitorial house-to-house enumeration applied uniformly to the entire electorate.
• Temporal decay of the presumption: The presumption of regularity under Section 114(e) relies on the notion of periodic accuracy of data. Where an entire state’s rolls have been carried forward exclusively through summary revisions for over two decades (since 2003 in Bihar) without a physical house-to-house audit, the empirical accuracy of the entries in the 2025 SIR under present adjudication, diminishes due to migration, demographic shifts, and unreported deaths.
• The nature of the requirement: Demanding that existing electors provide basic identity tokens or complete enumeration forms during a universal statewide audit does not alter the ultimate burden of proof or negate the presumption of validity; it operates as an administrative verification mechanism under Article 324 rather than an individual citizenship trial.

The contention that the evidentiary presumption identified in Lal Babu Hussain creates a permanent bar against a comprehensive administrative revision conflates a rebuttable procedural rule with a rule of substantive law. An entry in a published electoral roll provides an administrative checkpoint against arbitrary, selective deletions; it does not divest the Election Commission of its constitutional authority to verify database accuracy under Article 324.

Because the rules in Lal Babu Hussain were developed within the context of localised adjudicatory proceedings where individual entries were targeted without prior disclosure of the material basis, they cannot be expanded to invalidate a state-wide, inquisitorial policy exercise executed under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. In the SC’s present understanding and analysis, applying an individualised dispute framework to a systemic overhaul fails to recognise the legal distinction between a localised objection and a uniform administrative response to macro-demographic inaccuracies.

Furthermore, the legal weight of an administrative presumption under Section 114(e) of the Indian Evidence Act is operationally dependent on temporal proximity to physical verification. The factual matrix of Lal Babu Hussain involved a statutory regime where intensive house-to-house revisions were conducted at regular intervals, ensuring that entries carried forward reflected contemporary data. Where the electoral data has been modified solely via summary revisions for more than twenty years without a physical audit, the factual foundation sustaining the presumption undergoes structural decay. Requiring the Commission to establish individualised doubts prior to conducting a universal verification would reduce the statutory mechanism of intensive revisions to a dead letter. Systemic verification does not reverse the burden of proof regarding citizenship, but rather satisfies the contemporary administrative criteria required for electoral representation.

The invocation of the dictum in Lal Babu Hussain to erect an unyielding procedural embargo against a comprehensive administrative revision proceeds on an erroneous conflation of a rebuttable evidentiary presumption with an immutable rule of substantive law. While an existing entry in a published roll generates a presumption of regularity under Section 114 of the Evidence Act, such an administrative tool cannot paralyse the Election Commission’s plenary constitutional obligations under Article 324 to safeguard the integrity of the political community. The protective principles established in Lal Babu Hussain were designed within a narrow matrix of individual adjudicatory proceedings where specific voters were selectively targeted without due process. They cannot be stretched to obstruct a state-wide inquisitorial policy exercise directed at restoring the comprehensive structural accuracy of an electorate whose data has languished without house-to-house verification for over two decades.

While these are the lofty presumptions used by the SC to justify the 2025 SIR, there is no reference nor detailing in the present judgement of the huge laps and gaps of operational conduct by the ECI in making available forms to electors/voters, in giving an adequate time-frame for data collection, in making these processes transport etc. In fact, during the hearings initially, the SC had “promised” to step in if there were “mass deletions.” In the end the Bihar elections 2025 were conducted with no course correction.

Read our reports here, here and here.

Statutory defence and arguments of the commission

The ECI, represented by Senior Advocates Rakesh Dwivedi, Maninder Singh, and Dama Seshadri Naidu, defended the statutory validity of the drive by arguing that the petitioners had mischaracterised the nature and scope of the Special Intensive Revision. The commission’s primary defence was that the exercise did not constitute a formal nationality adjudication under deportation or citizenship laws. Instead, it was an electoral verification process aimed solely at ensuring that only eligible individuals remained on the voter registries. The commission emphasised that because the Constitution establishes a citizen-based franchise under Article 326, it is under a continuous constitutional obligation to maintain the purity of the rolls by removing ineligible entries.

The commission rejected the comparison to an NRC-style process, describing the Special Intensive Revision as a flexible, administrative verification model managed by civil election officials rather than an investigation conducted by police authorities. Addressing the petitioners’ reliance on Lal Babu Hussein, the commission argued that the precedent was factually distinguishable. It noted that the earlier case involved police involvement in the verification drive and lacked clear administrative safeguards, whereas the present drive was conducted entirely by election personnel and incorporated multiple layers of procedural review. The commission also maintained that prior inclusion on the rolls was not ignored and continued to serve as a piece of baseline evidence during the verification process.

The commission further argued that its authority under the statutory scheme is fully supported by the text of Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. It contended that the statutory power to conduct a special revision necessarily includes the authority to perform intensive verification when required to preserve the integrity of the electoral process. The commission rejected assertions of external motivation, stating that its actions were strictly guided by its institutional mandate to correct long-standing demographic inaccuracies in registries that had not undergone an intensive review for over two decades.

Judicial interpretation of Articles 324 and 327

The Supreme Court analysed the structural relationship between the plenary constitutional authority of the commission under Article 324 and the legislative powers of Parliament under Article 327. The court rejected the petitioners’ submission that the enactment of detailed statutory laws by Parliament entirely removes the independent regulatory authority of the commission. The bench held that Articles 324 and 327 are complementary provisions that must be interpreted in harmony with one another. While Parliament is empowered to enact laws governing the conduct and administration of elections, such statutes cannot be applied in a manner that strips the commission of its core constitutional obligation to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.

The court re-examined the legal principles established in Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner, (1978) 1 SCC 405, noting that while the commission must conform to valid legislative enactments and cannot act in direct contradiction to an express statutory prohibition, Article 324 functions as a continuous reservoir of power. This power enables the commission to issue regulatory directives to address administrative gaps where the statutory law is silent or insufficient to meet operational contingencies. The bench emphasised that the terms “superintendence, direction, and control” must be interpreted broadly to fulfil their constitutional purpose. The judgment delivered by Chief Justice Surya Kant held:

“When the statute itself authorises a special revision at any time, for reasons to be recorded and in such manner as the Election Commission may deem fit, the impugned exercise cannot be invalidated merely because it does not conform in every respect to the ordinary modalities contemplated for routine revision. In our considered opinion, the impugned SIR does not supplant the Representation of the People Act and the Rules. Rather, it breathes life into the constitutional mandate under Article 324 within the precise statutory contours provided by Section 21(3). Therefore, it cannot be said that the Commission has acted in excess of its statutory powers.”

Factual harmonisation with Section 21(3) and Rule 21A

The court proceeded to analyse the specific text of Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, to determine if the Special Intensive Revision conflicted with statutory mandates. The bench observed that while Section 21(2) outlines the standard, rule-bound annual summary revisions of voter lists, Section 21(3) operates as an independent, enabling provision designed for extraordinary demographic or administrative adjustments. The court emphasised two primary elements of Section 21(3):

• The operation of the non-obstante clause: The inclusion of the phrase “Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (2)” serves to decouple the special revision process from the strict procedural limits and timelines that govern routine summary revisions under Section 21(2) and Rule 25 of the 1960 Rules.

• Procedural discretion: The statutory phrase “in such manner as it may think fit” grants the commission broad administrative latitude to design the operational methods of a special revision based on ground-level exigencies, subject to the condition that it records its reasons in writing.

The bench rejected the petitioners’ strict geographic interpretation of the term “any constituency”. Applying Section 13(2) of the General Clauses Act, 1897—which provides that words in the singular include the plural—and drawing upon the interpretation in Prabhakaran v. P. Jayarajan (2005) 1 SCC 754, the court ruled that the word “any” can mean “all” or “many” depending on the statutory context and purpose. If the administrative reasons justifying an intensive revision apply uniformly across an entire state due to a multi-decade gap in house-to-house verification, the commission is legally authorised to issue a single consolidated order covering all constituencies within that state. The court noted that requiring individual, separate notifications for each constituency would create a fragmented administrative process that hinders the commission’s capability to fulfil its duties.

The judgment also addressed the petitioners’ arguments regarding Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, which details the procedure for deleting names due to death, migration, or disqualification. The court determined that deletions executed during a Special Intensive Revision do not stand in contradiction to Rule 21A. The bench held that because the essential procedural safeguards of notice, public display of draft lists, and the opportunity to file claims and objections remain preserved in substance, the revision framework complies with the core requirements of procedural fairness established by the rules.

Application of the proportionality test and rights balancing

The Supreme Court evaluated the SIR framework under the four prongs of the constitutional test of proportionality to determine whether the administrative measures unjustifiably infringed upon the right to vote under Article 326.

I. Legitimacy of purpose

The court ruled that the commission’s objective—ensuring that electoral registries are accurate, complete, and credible—is rooted in the constitutional mandates of Articles 325 and 326. The grounds for updating the rolls align with the statutory criteria for removal recognised by Parliament, such as voter death, changes in ordinary residence, or supervening disqualifications. Because inaccurate voter lists directly undermine the integrity of the democratic process, the initiation of the purification drive satisfies the requirement of a legitimate public purpose.

II. Rational nexus

The bench found a direct logical connection between the administrative method used and the objective pursued. A physical, house-to-house verification drive combined with standardised enumeration forms is a direct method to identify unrecorded deaths, duplicate entries, and outdated residency data that annual summary updates cannot fully resolve.

III. Necessity and least restrictive means

The petitioners argued that the commission should have utilised narrower, localised audits rather than a state-wide program. In reviewing this choice, the Supreme Court cited the constitutional bench ruling in Vivek Narayan Sharma v. Union of India (2023) 3 SCC 1, which established that evaluating the scale of a systemic administrative issue and choosing an appropriate regulatory response are tasks requiring specialised expertise. The court noted that maintaining accurate registries belongs to the exclusive constitutional mandate of the commission, involving complex logistical and demographic assessments. The judiciary will not substitute its own policy preferences for the methodology chosen by a specialised constitutional body unless that choice is demonstrated to be arbitrary or unguided. Given the pervasive nature of the inaccuracies accumulated over twenty-two years, the selection of a state-wide intensive revision was determined to be a necessary administrative step.

IV. Fair balancing

The court evaluated the balance between the administrative goals of the drive and the protection of individual franchise rights. The bench observed that while the right to vote is a key constitutional right, its operationalisation requires compliance with regulatory verification frameworks to confirm identity and residence. Procedural compliance requirements do not automatically violate the right, provided they are workable and accompanied by adequate remedies. The court noted that while the initial drop of 65 lakh names from the draft roll raised valid questions regarding potential exclusion, the subsequent integration of procedural safeguards—including the expansion of accepted identity documents, the public disclosure of the reasons for omission, and the mobilisation of legal service volunteers—ensured that the drive satisfied the test of proportionality and did not result in systemic disenfranchisement.

Scope of citizenship scrutiny and referral mandate

The Supreme Court addressed the exact boundaries of the commission’s authority regarding questions of citizenship during the compilation of electoral registries. The court rejected the submission that the commission is entirely barred from reviewing queries related to nationality. The bench pointed out that under Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, non-citizenship functions as an express statutory disqualification from registration. Because the commission is legally required to ensure that only eligible individuals are entered onto the rolls, it possesses the ancillary authority to scrutinise documentation concerning citizenship status at the stage of voter registration. The court held that calling upon electors to furnish supporting materials during a revision drive does not negate the presumption of citizenship recognised in Lal Babu Hussein; rather, it represents the procedural mechanism through which existing qualifications are verified.

However, the judgment drew a clear legal distinction between the administrative findings of the commission and the formal adjudication of nationality under the Citizenship Act, 1955. The bench ruled that an adverse determination by an election officer during a Special Intensive Revision exercise is limited strictly to electoral eligibility. Chief Justice Surya Kant observed:

“Upon detailed consideration, we have come to the conclusion that, in view of the statutory requirement under Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, the Commission, in the course of preparing or revising electoral rolls, is undoubtedly empowered to examine questions bearing upon citizenship. The consequence of such a citizenship determination is correspondingly limited. It affects the individual’s entitlement to be included in the electoral rolls and thereby the right to participate in the electoral process. It does not, however, operate to divest the individual of claims to citizenship, nor does it foreclose adjudication of that question by the competent authority under the Citizenship Act.”

The court further held that in instances where the commission determines that an individual has not produced sufficient material to satisfy the statutory criteria for inclusion on the rolls, it cannot issue a final or binding conclusion on their nationality. Instead, it is incumbent upon the commission to refer such individuals to the competent authority of the Union Government for formal adjudication in accordance with the law. Because the commission’s findings are confined to electoral purposes, any deletion executed on the grounds of doubtful citizenship remains subject to the final outcome of the adjudication conducted by the competent statutory authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955.

As a specific operational consequence of this referral mandate, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of India to forward to the Central Government the names of all persons deleted from the 2003 Bihar electoral rolls over doubtful citizenship. The court mandated that this list be compiled and transmitted to the Union Government within a strict timeframe of four weeks from the date of the judgment. This directive ensures that individuals whose names were removed during the purification drive due to nationality concerns are automatically placed into the appropriate legal channel for a final determination of their citizenship status by the competent central authority.

Current operational status of revisions

The judgment of the Supreme Court provides a sense of finality on the issues raised that is the statutory scope and procedural boundaries of Special Intensive Revisions conducted under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. However, given the procedural flaws (and there were many) couples with the statutory gaps, there is no final clarity on the mass disenfranchisement that has been affected in the process.

By simply validating the commission’s authority to initiate state-wide intensive drives and implement standardised documentation frameworks, the court has rendered legitimacy to a faulty and non-transparent administrative mechanism used to update what is being justified as long-standing inaccuracies in voter registries. Concurrently, by limiting the legal consequence of the commission’s findings strictly to electoral eligibility, the judgment prevents the administrative process from functioning as a final determination of nationality, preserving the jurisdiction of specialised authorities under the Citizenship Act, 1955. However, given that this adjudication process under the Citizenship act, 1955 lies with the Home Ministry of a Union Government that has made political exclusion and disenfranchisement part of its stated goals, this offers little succour. What the country is likely to see is the mass distress by documented exclusions caused to vast number of Indians.

Because the Supreme Court did not stay the administrative execution of the revision drive during the pendency of the litigation, the SIR process has already transitioned through its active phases and has been completed in several states, including Bihar, Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and West Bengal etc. Following the reservation of the judgment on January 29, 2026, and its formal pronouncement on May 27, 2026, the legal principles established by the bench now govern the ongoing SIR drives currently being carried out by the commission in multiple other states.

The full judgement dated May 27, 2026 may be read here:

Related

“Inside the SIR”: Booklet flags ‘mechanical disenfranchisement’ in electoral roll revision

VFD’s rebuttal of the Fadnavis’ Claims on Electoral Manipulation Allegations

The Bihar Verdict 2025: How an election was engineered before votes were cast

The post SC greenlights SIR, upholds ECI’s power to revise electoral rolls appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The agitation, organised under the banner of the Kanda Utpadak Shetkari Kranti Mahamorcha, drew large participation from onion growers across Nashik — one of India’s largest onion-producing regions — and was supported by leaders of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), including Rohit Pawar, Harshvardhan Sapkal and Ambadas Danve.

Demonstrations by different lots of farmers in a few thousands at the APMC’s procurement offices across districts culminated in a 10,000-strong blockade on the highway with several thousand being detained/arrested by the police. Apart from the protesting farmers, Opposition leaders who stood with protesting farmers in support were also detained. Harshvardhan Sakpal, President of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC), Rohit Pawar, Member of Vidhan Sabha (MLA) from Karjat from the NCP-Sharad Pawar (NCP-SP) and Ambadas Danve, former Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly from Shiv Sena-Udhav Thackeray.

According to a report published by Rural Voice, nearly 1,500 farmers gathered in Chandwad town and temporarily blocked traffic on the highway while demanding remunerative prices for onions amid a steep crash in market rates. Farmers argued that the current prices being offered in markets are far below their production costs and have pushed cultivators into severe distress. The report noted that onion wholesale inflation has remained negative since March 2025, while retail inflation has stayed negative since May 2025, reflecting a prolonged decline in prices that has sharply reduced farmer earnings.

Across several other media reports, farmers repeatedly highlighted the widening gap between cultivation costs and market returns. The New Indian Express reported that onion growers were demanding procurement at ₹32 per kilogram while prevailing market prices in parts of Maharashtra had reportedly crashed to as low as ₹4–6 per kilogram. Farmers and opposition leaders argued that the current rates are insufficient even to recover the cost of seeds, fertilisers, labour, storage and transport.

The immediate trigger for the protest was the Centre’s announcement of onion procurement through NAFED and NCCF at revised rates of approximately ₹1,580 per quintal. Farmer groups rejected the procurement price as grossly inadequate. Speaking during the protest, several cultivators stated that onion production itself costs roughly ₹1,800–2,000 per quintal, making the government’s procurement rate economically unviable. The Hindu quoted one farmer saying that cultivators were “not even able to recover the cost of production after selling onions.”

Farmer organisations demanded that procurement prices be increased substantially, with various groups seeking rates between ₹2,400 and ₹3,000 per quintal. Protesters also called for compensation for farmers who had already sold onions at distress prices over recent months. Reports in National Herald, Mid-Day and The Times of India noted that growers additionally demanded expanded procurement operations across onion-producing talukas, direct intervention in markets, and stronger implementation of price deficiency payment schemes.

The protest also reflected growing anger over repeated export restrictions imposed on onions over the past several years. Farmers alleged that unstable export policies and sudden government interventions had weakened India’s onion trade and severely damaged farmer incomes. According to The Hindu, opposition leaders argued that international markets, including Bangladesh, had increasingly reduced onion imports from India due to inconsistent export policies.

The demonstrations quickly escalated into a large-scale highway blockade. Multiple media outlets, including The Times of India and The Economic Times, reported that protesters marched from the Chandwad APMC to the Mumbai–Agra highway, blocking traffic for nearly 90 minutes to two hours. Long queues of vehicles formed on both sides of the road as farmers raised slogans, dumped onions onto the highway and wore garlands made of onions as a symbol of their distress.

Some protesters also distributed Melody toffees during the agitation in a symbolic political gesture directed at the Prime Minister after recent public attention around the confectionery brand. The Economic Times reported that protesters sarcastically remarked that if onions were promoted in the same way, perhaps their prices too would rise.

Police later intervened and detained several protesters and opposition leaders, including Harshvardhan Sapkal (INC) Rohit Pawar (NCP-SP), and Ambadas Danve (SS-UBT). According to The Times of India, more than 300 police personnel, including riot control units, were deployed to manage the situation. The report stated that over 50 protesters were detained under provisions of the Bombay Police Act before being released later.

While authorities alleged that some protesters attempted to deflate the tyres of stranded vehicles, opposition leaders claimed they had instructed demonstrators not to target ambulances, public transport or ordinary civilians. Nevertheless, the confrontation underscored the intensity of frustration among onion growers, many of whom say they have been trapped in recurring cycles of debt, price crashes and policy uncertainty.

Importantly, the Nashik protests are not an isolated flashpoint. They reflect a broader agrarian crisis that has repeatedly surfaced in Maharashtra’s onion economy over the past decade. Farmers participating in the agitation argued that while the costs of cultivation have steadily increased due to fertilisers, pesticides, labour, transport and storage expenses, government interventions have largely focused on controlling consumer prices rather than ensuring farmer incomes.

Several farmer leaders warned that continuing distress sales and unstable pricing policies could intensify indebtedness and deepen the agrarian crisis across onion-producing regions of Maharashtra. As protests spread beyond Nashik into areas including Sambhaji Nagar and Solapur, the demonstrations have once again drawn national attention to the fragile economics of onion cultivation — a sector where even minor policy shifts can determine whether farmers survive a season or sink further into debt.

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2025 in Protest: Across issues, across India

The post “₹4 a Kilo for a Crop That Costs ₹20 to Grow”: Nashik’s onion farmers erupt in protest over deepening price crisis appeared first on SabrangIndia.

SabrangIndia spoke in detail with Sadique Basha, CPI(M) leader from Mira-Bhayandar who has long worked on questions of communal harmony in the region and remained closely involved on the ground throughout the developments at Poonam Estate Cluster-1.

According to Basha, much of the public narrative around the incident has obscured a crucial fact: the temporary housing of goats ahead of qurbani had been a long-standing practice within the society and had continued for nearly a decade without generating communal tensions among residents.

He stressed that the issue escalated only after “outside fringe mobilisation” entered the society premises and transformed what had previously been an internally managed matter into a communal spectacle.

#WATCH | Mira Bhayandar, Maharashtra: Residents engage in protest at Poonam Estate Cluster-1 on Mira Road ahead of Eid al-Adha. Commotion erupted after goats were brought inside the society, with residents citing High Court orders banning sacrifices in residential areas without… pic.twitter.com/fuE4xPcvda

— ANI (@ANI) May 26, 2026

A long-standing practice within the society

Poonam Estate Cluster-1, located in Mira Road East, is a mixed residential society with a Hindu-majority population and several Muslim families residing there for years.

According to Basha, residents belonging to different communities had coexisted peacefully despite political attempts over the years to polarise the wider Mira-Bhayandar region. He stated that temporary covered shelters for goats brought ahead of Eid-ul-Adha had routinely been arranged within the society premises for years without objection from residents.

Basha shared with SabrangIndia that AGM records and internal society discussions reflected that the practice had existed for nearly ten years and had continued through consensus and coexistence. SabrangIndia is in possession of the society’s AGM resolution that in deed allows such temporary shelter spaces within its premises.

“This was never treated as a communal issue earlier. People knew each other. Families had been living together peacefully for years. Even though the society is Hindu-majority, there was no atmosphere of intolerance,” Basha said.

He added that contrary to claims circulated publicly by Hindutva groups, the arrangement primarily involved temporarily keeping goats in covered enclosures until qurbani and did not involve open slaughter within the residential premises.

This account also aligns with statements quoted in several media reports. Congress Corporator Zuber Inamdar reportedly told The Indian Express that while goats had indeed been brought into the society in previous years, slaughter had never taken place openly within the premises.

How the issue escalated

According to reports published by Mid-Day, objections initially emerged over the construction of a temporary shed for goats inside the society compound. The situation escalated sharply after right-wing elements associated with organisations such as Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) entered the locality following complaints raised by a section of residents.

Multiple reports noted that Bajrang Dal extremists gathered outside the society complex late Monday night, after which arguments between groups intensified. According to police accounts carried in media reports, confrontations later escalated into physical scuffles.

Basha told SabrangIndia that this marked a turning point in the situation, “A local disagreement was converted into a communal confrontation once outsiders entered the area. Many of the people mobilising outside the gate were not even residents of the society,” he said.

Residents familiar with developments similarly indicated that the dispute intensified only after outside political and Hindutva groups began assembling near the complex and framing the issue in openly communal terms.

Police intervention prevented further escalation

Despite the growing tensions, local residents and activists repeatedly emphasised to SabrangIndia that police intervention played a decisive role in preventing violence from escalating further. According to Basha, Mira-Bhayandar police responded actively and quickly once outside groups began mobilising. Moreover, while a couple of newly arrived residents had raised ‘objections’ to the previously existing practice, a vast majority of those who live there were not in agreement with what was being said (removal of the shelter spaces).

Finally, when fringe elements allegedly attempted to bring a pig into the society premises, police immediately intervened and removed the animal from the area. Officers also dispersed crowds, increased barricading around the housing complex and prevented direct confrontation between groups gathered outside the gates.

“The police acted quickly when the pig was brought. They stopped the provocation immediately and ensured the situation did not spiral,” Basha said.

Reports carried by The Indian Express noted that heavy police deployment followed the clashes, with more than 200 personnel stationed in and around the complex. Media reports further documented that police used crowd-control measures, including mild lathi-charge and barricading, to disperse aggressive gatherings and maintain order.

The administration also facilitated negotiations between residents and eventually arranged for the goats to be shifted to an alternative municipal ground nearby. Deputy Commissioner of Police Rahul Chavan told The Indian Express that meetings were conducted with both sides and that the municipal corporation identified an alternative location where the goats were later relocated.

By Tuesday evening, reports indicated that all goats had been removed from the society premises in municipal vehicles.

#WATCH | Maharashtra: Clashes erupt in Mumbai’s Mira Road as residents of Poonam Cluster Society protest against having goats inside the premises for sacrifice during the festival of Eid Al-Adha.

Heavy police deployment to maintain peace. pic.twitter.com/aV25rJAvPe

— ANI (@ANI) May 26, 2026

#WATCH | Maharashtra: Goats are being taken out of the Poonam Cluster Society in Mumbai’s Mira Road after clashes erupted over having goats inside the premises for sacrifice during the festival of Eid Al-Adha. https://t.co/XSvPq4RxAY pic.twitter.com/b6M2krUdAZ

— ANI (@ANI) May 26, 2026

Tegang Menjelang Aidiladha, Protes Bawa Babi Cetus Kekecohan Di Mumbai

OLEH MYNEWSHUB

MUMBAI – Ketegangan dilaporkan tercetus di kawasan Mira Road, Mumbai, India menjelang sambutan Aidiladha selepas sekumpulan aktivis Hindu didakwa cuba membawa babi memasuki sebuah kawasan… pic.twitter.com/qN1E81BhXA

— MYNEWSHUB (@mynewshub) May 26, 2026

Local residents resist polarisation

A central aspect repeatedly stressed by Basha was that many local residents themselves resisted efforts to communalise the atmosphere. According to him, despite the tensions and outside mobilisation, residents across communities largely wanted peace restored rather than confrontation prolonged.

“People living in the society know each other. They did not want violence or communal hatred. The atmosphere was disturbed by people coming from outside and turning it into a political issue,” he said.

Basha also noted that many residents remained disturbed by how rapidly the issue was amplified through provocative slogans, media attention and outsider intervention.

Even after the immediate clashes were brought under control, he said groups unaffiliated with the society continued gathering outside the gates and reciting the Hanuman Chalisa in an apparent attempt to sustain communal tension.

“Even today, people from outside the society came near the gates and continued slogan shouting and recitations. Residents remain anxious because they fear the issue is still being politically exploited,” he said.

In Mumbai’s Mira Road area, tensions surfaced after goats brought for Eid al-Adha were reportedly kept inside a residential society. Following objections from some residents, members of a Hindutva organization gathered outside the society and recited the Hanuman Chalisa as a form… pic.twitter.com/e1AkRIsPZV

— FOEJ Media (@FoejMedia) May 27, 2026

FIRs, detentions and unanswered questions

According to police statements, one FIR was registered in connection with an alleged blade attack on Bajrang Dal member Harsh Singh during the late-night confrontation. Police reportedly detained one person in connection with that incident, while several others were detained following scuffles outside the society.

#WATCH | Maharashtra: Harsh Singh, Vishwa Hindu Parishad Coordinator, who claims to be injured in the clashes, says, “Yesterday, around 8:00 PM, in the Poonam Cluster Society, a group of individuals had brought over 40 to 50 goats onto the premises; this caused significant… https://t.co/XSvPq4RxAY pic.twitter.com/t6kK1ESVuT

— ANI (@ANI) May 26, 2026

However, Basha pointed out that no broader FIRs had yet been filed regarding the communal mobilisation itself — including the attempted pig provocation, public intimidation outside the society and the role played by organised fringe groups in escalating tensions.

He stated that residents and activists planned to pursue demands for legal action after Eid-ul-Adha.

“As of now, the immediate focus has been on maintaining peace and ensuring no further escalation during Eid. But there are serious concerns regarding the communal provocation that took place,” he said. “Thereafter, we will definitely also want to pursue registration of more FIRs,” he added.

Attempts to give the issue an Islamophobic and communal turn

According to Hindustan Times, tensions escalated significantly after fringe groups attempted to communalise the issue through provocative acts and rhetoric. One of the most inflammatory moments came when Hindutva extremist allegedly attempted to bring a pig near or inside the society premises in response to Muslim families keeping goats for Eid-ul-Adha.

Several reports documented that the far-right elements justified this as a so-called “Varaha Puja.” However, reports also pointed out that Varaha Jayanti falls much later in the year and that the act appeared designed primarily as a retaliatory communal provocation.

Basha described the move as a deliberate attempt to intimidate Muslim residents and transform the atmosphere inside the society.

“When fringe elements brought a pig near the society and tried to communalise the issue openly, the atmosphere became tense very quickly,” he told SabrangIndia.

The communal rhetoric surrounding the issue was further intensified through inflammatory public statements made by certain political leaders and Hindutva functionaries.

Statements reported in The Indian Express included allegations that Muslims were attempting to “occupy Hindu localities,” assertions that goats created fear among vegetarian and Jain residents, and threats that “goats would be answered with pigs.”

BJP leader Kirit Somaiya publicly framed the issue as one involving “fear” among Hindu and Jain families and demanded restrictions on qurbani in housing societies. BJP MLA Sanjay Upadhyay reportedly stated, “If the minority community does not follow the Constitution and follows Sharia, then we will answer goats with pigs.”

Mumbai, Maharashtra: BJP MLA Sanjay Upadhyay says, “Not only in Mira Road, but also in Borivali, in Sumer Nagar society, a single family lives there, yet they have brought six goats into the society premises. The entire society is opposing this. The Maharashtra government has… pic.twitter.com/fh2QPS0waU

— IANS (@ians_india) May 26, 2026

For many local residents, these statements deepened fears that an ordinary residential issue was being transformed into a wider communal mobilisation.

A wider political campaign around Qurbani

The Mira Road controversy has unfolded amid a broader political campaign by sections of BJP leaders and Hindutva organisations seeking restrictions on qurbani practices within residential areas across Mumbai and surrounding urban regions.

In recent days, BJP leaders including Kirit Somaiya and Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde reportedly urged civic authorities to prohibit animal sacrifice in housing societies, chawls and residential complexes.

Simultaneously, Maharashtra authorities have also announced stringent action against alleged illegal slaughterhouses ahead of Eid-ul-Adha, including possible invocation of MCOCA provisions in certain cases.

Within this larger climate, residents and local activists fear that routine religious practices are increasingly being reframed as communal flashpoints through organised political mobilisation.

For many in Mira Road, the incident has therefore come to symbolise not merely a dispute over goats or temporary sheds, but the vulnerability of mixed neighbourhoods to rapid communal polarisation once external political groups intervenes.

Opposition parties condemn communal mobilisation, call for peace

Opposition leaders and minority representatives also reacted sharply to the developments at Mira Road, condemning attempts to inflame communal tensions ahead of Eid-ul-Adha and urging the administration to ensure peace and lawful accommodation of religious practices.

Waris Pathan criticised the escalation and described the incident as an attempt to damage communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims.

Speaking on the controversy, Pathan said the developments at Mira Road were “shameful” and alleged that deliberate efforts had been made to create communal division in the area.

“The incident that happened is shameful. An incident to tear apart the Hindu-Muslim brotherhood has taken place,” he said, while demanding “strict legal action against those who tried to spread communal hatred.”

His remarks came amid growing concerns among residents and civil society groups that the issue had been amplified far beyond an internal housing society disagreement through organised political mobilisation and provocative rhetoric by fringe groups.

VIDEO | Mumbai: On Mira Road Bakri Eid Row, AIMIM leader Waris Pathan says, “The incident that happened is shameful. An incident to tear apart the Hindu-Muslim brotherhood has taken place… I have demanded that strict legal action to be taken against those who tried to spread… pic.twitter.com/2XzR5EFKci

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 26, 2026

Meanwhile, Abu Azmi appealed for restraint and urged the government to ensure that Eid-ul-Adha could be observed peacefully and in accordance with legal regulations.

Referring to qurbani as an essential religious obligation for Muslims who have the means to perform it, Azmi said authorities should proactively create designated arrangements to prevent conflict and anxiety during the festival period.

“The government should pay attention and allow this festival to be celebrated properly. There should be no tension among people,” he said.

Azmi further stated that while religious practices should remain within the framework of law and public regulations, the administration should provide separate designated spaces to facilitate sacrifice arrangements in densely populated residential localities.

#WATCH | Mumbai: On the issue of the shed built for sacrifice in Mira Road before Eid ul-Adha, Maharashtra Samajwadi Party President Abu Azmi says, “The government should pay attention and allow this festival (Eid ul-Adha) to be celebrated properly. There should be no tension… pic.twitter.com/xjocsrAJdD

— ANI (@ANI) May 26, 2026

The reactions from opposition leaders came even as local residents at Mira Road continued to emphasise that coexistence inside the society had remained peaceful for years before outside mobilisation escalated the situation into a communal confrontation.

Situation currently calm, but residents remain concerned

At present, the immediate situation in Mira Road remains under control. Police deployment continues in sensitive pockets around the housing complex, while local residents across communities have sought restoration of normalcy.

Basha told SabrangIndia that despite the fear and tension generated over the past two days, ordinary residents still wished to preserve the coexistence that had characterised the locality for years.

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The post Attempts to communalise Mira Road Eid preparations defused by residents and police appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Himalayas hold the headwaters of the Ganga, Yamuna, Sutlej, Beas, Ravi and Chenab, sustaining vast populations downstream. But this is also a young, unstable and seismically active terrain. Glaciers such as Gangotri and Yamunotri are retreating, exposing loose moraine and weakening slopes. Cloudbursts, landslides and debris flows, as seen in Kedarnath in 2013, are therefore not isolated events but warnings from a fragile system. A small slope cutting, tunnel, or river diversion can disturb water channels; dry village springs, or trigger downstream flooding. Despite this, the region has seen rapid hydropower and infrastructure expansion, involving blasting, tunnelling, river diversion and construction across some of India’s most vulnerable mountain valleys.

These pressures have turned the Himalayan High Courts into something they were never designed to be: the last line of ecological defence. Litigants arrive with public interest petitions seeking to stop dams, protect panchayat authority over local resources, and enforce constitutional environmental rights. The question this study asks is not whether these courts occasionally issue protective orders. They do. The question is whether protection is the pattern or the exception. When ecological harm is demonstrated, do these courts hold the line? Or do they find ways to accommodate the project, the corporation, the state plan? By examining judgments the three High Courts — Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh, the third part of a three-part series maps the architecture of environmental jurisprudence in the mountains and identifies where that architecture cracks under pressure.^[1]

The Architecture of Eco-Centric Protection

The Uttarakhand Eco-Centric Doctrinal Expansion (2016-2018)

There are moments in judicial history when a court steps outside its accustomed vocabulary and speaks a different language. The Uttarakhand High Court between 2016 and 2018 was such a moment. The court produced a trilogy of rulings that received criticism for attempting to restate the environmental jurisprudence. They were attempts to reimagine the legal relationship between the state, the citizen, and the natural world. What makes them significant is not just what they held, but what they asked: if a river sustains life, should it not have standing in court?

In Mohd. Salim v. State of Uttarakhand (2017), the court confronted the familiar issue of municipal pollution and encroachment along the Ganga and Yamuna. What it produced was anything but familiar. A Division Bench of Justices Rajiv Sharma and Alok Singh declared these rivers, along with all their tributaries, streams, and torrents, to be legal persons and living entities. This was not metaphor. The Bench exercised its parens patriae jurisdiction to appoint the Director of the Namami Gange project, the Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand, and the Advocate General as guardians acting in loco parentis. The reasoning was stark: rivers breathe. They sustain communities from the glaciers to the sea. To treat them as property is to miss their essence. The court anchored this in Article 21, reading the right to life as extending to the life that the rivers themselves embody.^[2]

Critics have called this approach radical. It was. The traditional legal model treats a river as a thing over which the state has sovereign control, the citizen has riparian rights, and the corporation has extraction permits. Each of these legal relationships assumes the river’s continued existence. None of them guarantees it. By making the river itself a rights-holder, the court inverted the burden of justification.

The doctrinal expansion continued in Lalit Miglani v. State of Uttarakhand (2017), where the same Bench extended legal personhood to the broader ecosystem. Gangotri and Yamunotri glaciers gained rights. So did the air, meadows, forests, wetlands, grasslands, springs, and waterfalls of the state. The court did not stop at declaration. It deployed continuing mandamus to direct twenty-one hydroelectric projects on the Ganga’s mainstream to install functional Sewage Treatment Plants within six months. It ordered the Comptroller and Auditor General to conduct a special financial and compliance audit of all centrally financed Ganga rejuvenation schemes, with the report to be placed directly before the President of India. These were not hortatory observations. They were operational commands backed by the contempt power of the court.^[3]

In Narayan Dutt Bhatt v. Union of India (2018), the court extended legal personhood to the entire animal kingdom. Confronted with the cruelty of commercial horse-carts at the Indo-Nepal border, Justices Rajiv Sharma and Lokpal Singh held that the right to life under Article 21 protects all animals, avian and aquatic. Every citizen of Uttarakhand was declared a guardian in loco parentis. The implications were again, radical. For centuries, animals have been property under Indian law. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act treats them as objects of human benevolence. This judgment treated them as subjects of rights. The shift from property to person is not merely semantic. It determines who bears the burden in court. A property owner can do what they please with their property, subject to regulation. A guardian must act in the best interests of the ward. The legal grammar changed from permission to duty.^[4]

The Rishikesh White-Water Rafting Industry case (2018) demonstrated how this eco-centric framework operated in practice. Faced with water pollution, public intoxication, and unregulated adventure sports licensing along the Ganga, the court halted all rafting operations. The Bench explicitly subordinated the importance of regional tourism economy to the importance of ecological health of the river. Commercial activities could resume only when the state implemented a comprehensive, protective regulatory policy. This was the precautionary principle in its purest form: when the ecological stakes are high, activity stops first and proof of safety comes later. The court refused to let commerce continue while regulators deliberated.

The Uttarakhand High Court maintained structural oversight during ecological crises. The Forest Fires Suo Moto Line (2024-2026), initiated by Chief Justice G. Narendar and Justice Subhash Upadhyay, responded to recurring forest fires not with a single order but with sustained administrative reform. The court ordered the state to fill all long-standing vacancies in the Forest Department within six months. It mandated year-round environmental monitoring instead of seasonal tracking. It empowered gram panchayats by establishing village-level fire committees. These orders recognized that environmental protection is not a one-time judicial intervention. It is an ongoing institutional commitment. Forests do not burn because of a single cause. They burn because of cumulative neglect, which includes underfunded departments, absent personnel, and local communities excluded from management. The court addressed the root causes.^[5]

The Himachal Pradesh Community-Centric Protective Model

The Himachal Pradesh High Court demonstrated its protective capacity long before the contemporary era. In General Public of Saproon Valley (1991), the court directed the state to constitute a scientific committee to assess the environmental impact of heavy vehicular traffic through the Solan district and required notification to all project-affected persons before issuing any mining licenses or tree-felling permits. This was three decades before environmental impact assessment became a statutory requirement. The court was operating from first principles: if a project alters the environment, those who live in that environment must know before, not after. The Saproon Valley order established a template that the court would return to repeatedly: protection begins with procedure, and procedure begins with the community.^[6]

The Suo Moto Stone-Crusher PIL Line concerning Bathan and Thural (2019) draws from this community-centric model. Chief Justice Mohammed Rafiq and Justice Sandeep Sharma converted letters from rural residents into public interest litigation. The Neugal River was being destroyed by illegal stone-crushing operations that caused severe slope instability and riverbed erosion. The court’s intervention was swift and targeted. It protected the authority of Gram Panchayat issued No-Objection Certificates against administrative coercion by state industry departments. It enforced strict compliance from the State Pollution Control Board. The precautionary principle was applied at the licensing stage, preventing industrial operations from creating an environmental fait accompli. The court understood what many environmental judgments miss i.e., once a crusher is installed, once a riverbed is mined, once a slope is destabilized, the harm is done. Prevention is the only remedy that works in geographies that are as sensitive as the Himalayas.^[7]

The Gram Panchayats Bhatanwali, Patalia and Behral v. Union of India (2026) extended this procedural protection to federal land-use planning. Local panchayats challenged an Eco-Sensitive Zone notification around the Col. Sherjung National Park in Simbalbara, Sirmaur district. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had omitted required field surveys, land-use inventories, and joint committee formation as mandated by its own 2011 guidelines. Justices Vivek Singh Thakur and Ranjan Sharma quashed the notification. The ruling was technically procedural, but its ecological impact was substantive. A poorly drawn notification that ignores ground realities is worse than no notification at all. It creates legal confusion, invites non-compliance, and discredits the entire regulatory regime. By enforcing proper procedure, the court protected not just the local panchayats but the integrity of the Eco-Sensitive Zone concept itself.^[8]

Another PIL concerning illegal mining in Bageshwar district demonstrated that the Uttarakhand High Court could still act decisively when the harm was visible and immediate. The court took suo moto cognizance and directed the District Magistrate to personally verify illegal mining operations. It constituted a joint committee for ground-level inspection. These were not complex legal questions requiring nuanced balancing. They were straightforward violations of existing law that administrative agencies had failed to prevent. And the court acted swiftly.^[9]

Jammu and Kashmir: Continuity in Wetland and Alpine Protection

The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has demonstrated continuity in its protective stance over environment. Its protective oversight of Dal Lake has spanned more than two decades, surviving the major constitutional reorganization of August 2019 and the transition from state to Union Territory. Successive Division Benches led by Chief Justices Pankaj Mithal, Arun Palli, and N. Kotiswar Singh have maintained seamless oversight of one of the most threatened urban water bodies in the world. When the Master Plan 2035 proposed reducing the 200-meter environmental exclusion zone around Dal Lake to a variable 20-to-100-meter limit, the court intervened directly. In September 2024, it ordered that no new permanent construction would be allowed within the original buffer zones. The warning was explicit: unregulated development could undo twenty years of conservation effort in a single construction season.^[10]

This continuity extends to Wular Lake, where a dedicated litigation line ran from 2021 to 2024. The Wular Lake Conservation and Management Authority had proven ineffective. Illegal encroachments continued. Municipal garbage dumping persisted. Dredging operations moved at glacial speed. In August 2024, Justice Rajnesh Oswal rebuked the authority for failing to meet its objectives and wasting public funds. The court’s frustration was palpable. Public money had been provided by the central government specifically for lake restoration. The authority had absorbed it without producing results. The court’s intervention here was not about legal innovation. It was about institutional accountability. Environmental protection requires institutions that function. When they do not, the court must either reform them or replace their functions with its own oversight.^[11]

The Ramsar Wetlands Suo Motu Line aggregated seven internationally recognized sites across Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including Hokersar, Shalbugh, Haigam, Surinsar-Mansar, Tso Moriri, and Tso Kar. The court enforced the Wetland Conservation and Management Rules 2017, requiring both Union Territories to coordinate with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and technical bodies like IIT Roorkee for Integrated Management Plans. This was strategic environmental governance at scale. Rather than addressing each wetland individually, the court created a unified oversight framework. The Ramsar designation carries international legal obligations. The court ensured that these obligations would not remain paper commitments.^[12]

The Sonamarg Construction Ban case (2017) represents the one of the most pro-active stances of the Court in environment protection. To shield the Thajiwas Glacier watershed and the Sindh River from tourism-induced degradation, the court banned all unapproved constructions within the Sonamarg Development Authority’s jurisdiction. It made the Chief Executive Officer personally liable under contempt law for any fresh unauthorized structures. It ordered a scientific status report directly from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Kashmir, bypassing standard bureaucratic reporting. This treatment of scientific data as a firm ceiling for development is the antithesis of the balancing approach. Science was not one factor among many. It was the limiting factor. In early 2025, the court reinforced this stance by taking suo moto cognisance of environmental violations in the Gulmarg-Sonamarg road-widening project, converting a newspaper report into PIL and demanding a personal response from the Development Authority’s CEO.^[13]

Structural Cracks and Infrastructure Deference

The Himachal Pradesh Cascade: Hydropower, Mining, and Urban Deregulation

The judgments discussed earlier did protect forests, rivers, lakes, and local communities. However, they are not the usual pattern. In many Himalayan cases, courts speak about balance, development, procedure, and jurisdiction. The language sounds neutral. However, the result often weakens environmental protection.

A clear example is State of Himachal Pradesh v. Yogendra Mohan Sengupta (2024). The NGT had imposed strict limits on height and construction in the Shimla Planning Area. These limits were based on real risks. Shimla sits on fragile slopes. It faces landslides, cloudbursts, and earthquakes. The 2023 monsoon had already shown how dangerous this could be, with major loss of life and damage across Himachal Pradesh.

The Supreme Court lifted those restrictions. It said development and environment had to be balanced. It also held that the NGT could not force the State to frame planning rules in a particular way. On paper, this looked like a technical administrative law issue. In reality, it shifted control back to the State’s planning authorities. These authorities are often more influenced by development pressure than ecological limits.

The Court also distinguished Godavarman, a major forest protection case. This mattered. Instead of treating environmental protection as a strong constitutional duty, the Court treated it as one factor to be balanced against construction. That is the problem. Slopes do not become safer because a plan allows more buildings. Every extra floor adds weight. Every new building adds pressure on water, sewage, drainage, and roads. When the land gives way, the damage is not theoretical. It is physical and often deadly.

A similar problem appears in N.H.P.C. Ltd. v. State of Himachal Pradesh (2024). There, the Himachal Pradesh High Court struck down the State’s water cess on hydropower electricity generation. The Court held that the State did not have the constitutional power to impose such a tax, because electricity generation falls within the Centre’s field. It also ordered refund of the amounts collected.

The reasoning was legal and technical. However, the environmental background was left mostly unaddressed. Himachal’s rivers, including the Sutlej, Beas, Ravi, and Chenab systems, are heavily used for hydropower. These projects divert rivers, tunnel through mountains, change natural flows, and affect downstream communities. The cess was an attempt to make hydropower developers pay at least something for the ecological cost of their projects. By treating the issue mainly as a tax dispute, the Court missed the deeper environmental question. The ecological impact of thirty-plus hydropower projects on a single river basin was never examined. The court’s analysis focused on which level of government has the constitutional power to tax, not on whether the activity being taxed is destroying the resource base that both governments are constitutionally obligated to protect under Article 48A. The ruling thus achieved a double displacement: it removed the state’s financial tool for environmental regulation while legitimizing the fiction that hydropower development is merely an electricity-generation activity rather than a mountain-transforming, river-altering, ecology-disrupting industrial enterprise.

The Alaknanda Hydro Power litigation in Uttarakhand follows an identical pattern. The case centred on environmental clearance for hydroelectric projects on the Alaknanda river system, a major Ganga tributary. The court’s engagement was confined to procedural compliance with environmental impact assessment norms rather than substantive evaluation of cumulative basin-wide impacts. This is the central flaw of environmental litigation in the hydropower sector. Each project is assessed individually. The combined effect of multiple tunnels, multiple diversions, multiple blasting operations on a single geological system is never judicially examined. Environmental scientists have documented the cumulative impact extensively: altered sediment transport, dewatered river reaches, increased seismic stress from reservoir loading, slope destabilization from tunnelling. However, courts continue to treat each project as an isolated legal entity, as if rivers were divisible into segments that can be dammed one at a time without systemic consequence.^[14]

In Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the modification of the Sonamarg Construction Ban in June 2024 reveals how even the strongest protective orders can be eroded through incremental exception. The original 2017 ban, issued to protect the Thajiwas Glacier watershed and the Sindh River, was clear: no new construction within the Sonamarg Development Authority’s jurisdiction. The 2024 order, issued by Chief Justice N. Kotiswar Singh and Justice Moksha Khajuria Kazmi, created an exception for the Amarnath Yatra. Temporary structures would be permitted within the protected eco-sensitive zones to accommodate pilgrims. The court attached conditions: the structures must be dismantled after the pilgrimage, the land restored. However, the creation of an annual exception to an ecological carrying capacity is not a minor adjustment. It is a precedent. Next year the structures may be larger. The following year, they may be semi-permanent. The glacier does not distinguish between temporary and permanent human pressure. Ice melts the same way regardless of the legal category of the structure above it.^[15]

The Amarnath Yatra brings hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to a fragile high-altitude ecosystem. The waste generated, the water extracted, the vegetation trampled, the slopes compacted, all exceed the area’s natural absorption capacity. The court’s accommodation of this pressure is often framed in terms of religious freedom and public convenience. However, rights are not absolute when they destroy the resource base that makes them possible. The right to pilgrimage assumes the continued existence of the pilgrimage site. If the glacier melts, if the meadows erode, if the river silts up, there is nothing left to pilgrimage. The 2024 Sonmarg modification, like the Char Dham highway expansion, treats environmental protection as an obstacle to be managed rather than a foundation to be preserved.

The Uttarakhand Retreat: From Personhood to Procedural Barrier

The Uttarakhand High Court’s trajectory from 2017 to 2026 traces the arc of environmental promise and judicial retreat more starkly. In 2017, it declared rivers to be legal persons. By 2023, it was dismissing local communities for lack of standing. The speed of this reversal is remarkable

The Mohd. Salim and Lalit Miglani judgments were stayed by the Supreme Court in 2017. The stays were procedural. The apex court did not reject the legal personhood doctrine on merits. It simply prevented implementation while the state government’s appeals were heard. However, procedural paralysis is often the most effective form of doctrinal killing. Seven years later, the Special Leave Petition in Lalit Miglani remains pending. The legal personhood of the Ganga, the Yamuna, the glaciers, the forests, exists on paper but not in practice. No guardian has ever filed a case on behalf of the river. No polluter has ever been held liable for violating a river’s rights. The anthropocentric legal system simply could not operationalize a non-anthropocentric legal concept. State authorities argued, predictably, that granting rights to nature created unmanageable liabilities. What they meant was that it would make their development projects more difficult to approve. The Supreme Court’s stay gave them exactly what they needed: time, during which the projects proceeded and the legal innovation fossilized.^[16]

The procedural retreat became explicit in the Tapovan-Vishnugad PIL line following the Chamoli disaster of February 2021, which should have been a turning point. A glacier collapsed above the Rishi Ganga, triggering a debris flow that devastated the area and provided catastrophic physical evidence of hydropower vulnerability. Local residents from the villages of Raini and Joshimath filed public interest litigation seeking the cancellation of the Rishi Ganga and Tapovan-Vishnugad Hydro Projects and the ecological restoration of the affected watershed. However, in July 2021, rather than stopping construction until safety was proven, the Division Bench shifted the focus entirely from ecological risk to petitioner credibility. The court questioned the standing of the local villagers, scrutinized their identities as “social activists,” and characterized the PIL as a “highly motivated” petition filed by “puppets at the hand of an unknown puppeteer”. It dismissed their challenges and imposed financial costs of Rs. 10,000 on each petitioner.

The reasoning in this July 2021 order was purely procedural. The petitioners were found wanting in locus standi, and the court did not examine whether the Tapovan-Vishnugad project violated environmental norms or assess the scientific evidence regarding the future safety and stability of the disaster-prone terrain. It simply ruled that the wrong people had asked the right questions. This is proceduralism as environmental obstruction. When local communities, who are the first to feel the effects of ecological collapse, are denied standing to challenge the projects that cause it, the court removes the most direct form of democratic environmental accountability. It was not until January 2023—a year and a half later, when severe land subsidence had already made parts of Joshimath uninhabitable—that a different Division Bench finally intervened to grant an interim stay, providing the correct but delayed response that construction must halt when a town is sinking.

The Char Dham Pariyojana tells a similar story of procedural enablement of ecological destruction. The Uttarakhand High Court did not issue pre-construction stays. It allowed the project to proceed while litigation continued. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court as Citizens for Green Doon v. Union of India, the physical reality on the ground had changed. Tunnels had been bored. Blasting had occurred. Hundreds of kilometres of road had been cut into mountain faces. The Supreme Court’s December 2021 order, permitting a 10-meter wide double-lane paved shoulder design, was framed around strategic defence needs and national security. The court treated a 2018 Ministry of Road Transport and Highways circular, advising 5.5-meter limits for hilly terrain, as non-binding for strategic corridors. The environmental rule of law was noted, then balanced away. By June 2025, when citizens petitioned the Chief Justice of India for review following fresh disasters in the Bhagirathi eco-sensitive zone, the project’s financial outlays and physical progress had created an institutional fait accompli. The money was spent. The road was built. The review was rendered practically irrelevant by the sunk costs of ecological destruction.^[17]

The Uttarakhand cases show a clear shift. Earlier, the Court took a more protective approach towards rivers, hydropower projects, and animal welfare. In the later cases, however, it was more willing to defer to development decisions, question the maintainability of local petitions, and treat environmental concerns within narrower legal limits. The change is therefore not only in outcomes, but also in the way the Court frames environmental disputes. It is a change in judicial imagination. The 2016-2018 court imagined a world where ecology governed law. The post-2020 court imagines a world where law governs ecology, and that governance takes the form of balancing, procedural filtering, and incremental accommodation of development.

The Commodification of Ecosystems: Compensatory Afforestation as a Readymade Panacea

The jurisprudence of accommodation does not solely rely on procedural dismissals or jurisdictional sidesteps; it fundamentally alters the conceptual premise of environmental conservation by embracing the commodification of nature. When high-value infrastructure projects—particularly national highways and linear corridors—collide with the protective mandates of forest conservation, the Himalayan High Courts frequently adopt the compensatory paradigm, treating complex, ancient ecosystems as fungible assets that can be mathematically replaced.

In Reenu Paul v. Union of India,^[18] the Uttarakhand High Court assessed the ecological impact of infrastructure projects on forest land. Rather than demanding a rigorous, site-specific ecological appraisal or applying the precautionary principle to limit forest diversion, the Division Bench actively encouraged the State Government to identify “land banks” to serve as a repository for compensatory afforestation. The court commended this as a “proactive stance,” observing that a developer coming up with infrastructural development would have a “readymade solution in the form of the afforestation carried out in advance”. The court reasoned that providing developers with pre-packaged land banks ensures that the project’s cost can simply be borne at pre-fixed rates, enabling a “continuous cycle” of development where the state concurrently creates green cover.

This represents the ultimate crack in environmental jurisprudence. By celebrating a “readymade solution” for infrastructure developers, the court legally validated the myth of ecological interchangeability. A mature Himalayan forest—complete with its specific hydrological functions, soil stabilization capacities, and endemic biodiversity—is treated as functionally equivalent to a monoculture sapling plantation on a designated land bank. The language of environmental protection is retained (the court noted this ensures the “green cover is not impacted seriously”), but its application is entirely facilitative.

Sovereign Exceptionalism: National Security and the Eclipse of Community Commons

When the state invokes national security or acute public need, the ecological evidence test is routinely bypassed. The state’s assertion of necessity functions as a jurisdictional shield, neutralizing Supreme Court precedents designed to protect community ecology.

In Inhabitants of Village Dambra v. UT of J&K,^[19] the Jammu and Kashmir High Court confronted the transfer of 148 Kanals and 1 Marla of Shamlat Deh (Mehfooz Kacharai) land—traditional village grazing commons containing forests and ponds—to the Prisons Department for the construction of a High-Security Prison. The villagers argued that destroying the grazing grounds and water bodies violated the Supreme Court’s stringent directives against alienating community commons, arguing the land required preservation.

The Division Bench dismissed the petition, insulating the project using the language of sovereign security. The court observed that the decision to establish such a prison was taken in view of the prevailing situation in Jammu and Kashmir, which is afflicted by terrorist activities abetted by inimical foreign forces. The court explicitly concluded that the construction of a high-security prison serves a public purpose and is “necessary for the security of the nation.” Crucially, the Supreme Court precedents demanding the strict protection of community ecology and grazing lands were not considered. The court ruled that these precedents “could not be invoked to come in the way of an important project required in public interest and for the security of the Nation”. Ecology was not balanced against security and it was rather entirely eclipsed by it.

A similar dilution occurs when the state voluntarily lowers its own environmental regulations to accelerate extraction. In Inhabitants of Sheva Shirshu Doda v. UT of J&K,^[20] local villagers challenged the installation of a stone crusher and hot mix plant in an environmentally sensitive area. The government had promulgated S.O. 60 of 2021, a highly permissive framework that liberalized the mining regime and removed the need for a Mining Department license for stone crushers by redefining them not as mining units, but merely as “processors of minerals”. Faced with this executive rollback of environmental safeguards, the High Court did not invoke the doctrine of non-regression or the precautionary principle. Instead, the court deferred entirely to the state, citing the limited “scope of judicial review of government policy” and declaring that courts cannot act as appellate authorities over executive formulations. By framing the dispute as a matter of administrative policy rather than an ecological one, the court accommodated the industrial degradation of the mountain landscape.

Procedural Myopia: Weaponising Timelines and Standing to Shield Environmental Harm

The most effective judicial mechanism for accommodating ecological harm without directly contradicting environmental law is procedural dismissal. By focusing intensely on the petitioner’s locus standi, timelines, and procedural technicalities, courts successfully, avoid the burden of assessing complex environmental evidence.

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court’s handling of the Rinkoo Sharma v. Union of India^[21] PILs exemplifies this procedural obstruction. Petitioners challenged the de-notification of the protected Trikuta Wildlife Sanctuary to allow for the extraction of high-grade magnesite and a mining project by the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) near the Vaishno Devi Shrine. Rather than demanding a rigorous ecological assessment of mining in a highly fragile wildlife zone, the Division Bench interrogated the procedural posture of the petitions. The court noted that the environmental clearance was subject to the final orders of the Supreme Court, rendering the PILs “pre-mature.”

More significantly, the court weaponized procedural rules against the petitioners. It observed that the petitioners, who were advocates, had failed to comply with Rule 24 of the Writ Proceedings Rules, which mandated sending a prior representation to the concerned authorities before filing a PIL. Because this technical pre-requisite was not met, and because the petitioners failed to disclose the pendency of a related PIL, both petitions were dismissed at the threshold. The substantive reality—the irreversible ecological impact of mining in a protected Himalayan wildlife sanctuary—was entirely bypassed via procedural formalism.

The doctrine of delay and laches serves an identical shielding function. In Sumit Nayyar v. Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board ^[22], an advocate filed a PIL challenging the construction of pilgrim infrastructure and mule-track developments by the Shrine Board. The court not only dismissed the petition on the grounds of an eight-year delay and laches, but it also aggressively questioned the bona fides of the petitioner. Citing Supreme Court jurisprudence on frivolous litigation, the court warned that public interest litigation filed by members of the legal profession without serious “home work and enquiry” should be dismissed with exemplary costs to prevent the abuse of the judicial process. By shifting the judicial gaze from the carrying capacity of the Trikuta hills to the conduct and timing of the petitioner, the court effectively insulated the continuous expansion of religious tourism infrastructure from environmental scrutiny.

Conclusion

The environmental jurisprudence of the Himalayan High Courts over the last decade reveals an unsettling paradox: the vocabulary of ecological protection has never been richer, yet the physical landscape has never been more legally vulnerable. The courts of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh have masterfully preserved the text of environmental law while pronouncing judgements that blunt its teeth.

When confronted with the relentless march of state-backed mega-projects, cascade hydropower, and strategic corridors, the judiciary rarely mounts its attack on the basis of precautionary principle or the public trust doctrine. Instead, it engages in a sophisticated jurisprudence of accommodation. As this analysis demonstrates, systemic ecological crises are administratively sanitized, neutralized by the invocation of sovereign “national security” overrides, or deflected through hyper-technical applications of locus standi and laches. The courts do not need to explicitly reject environmental safeguards to permit ecological destruction; they simply change the legal subject.

Even when the courts do intervene, the nature of the intervention has decisively shifted from absolute prohibition to facilitative mitigation. Existential threats to glacial watersheds and fragile seismic zones are reduced to logistical challenges—solved by minor mitigation measures, or the transactional fiction of “readymade” compensatory afforestation banks. The strict legal boundary lines once drawn to protect nature are repeatedly erased and redrawn as mere pricing mechanisms or technical compliance hurdles. The state is permitted to lower the statutory bar, and the polluter is legally validated for successfully stepping over it.

In this accommodative framework, the Himalayas are no longer treated as a sacred public trust or an integrated living ecosystem holding intergenerational equity. They are legally framed as a challenging terrain to be engineered, compensated for, and ultimately conquered. The foundational tenets of Indian environmental law were designed as a hard ceiling against irreversible harm, but they have been retooled into a machinery of concession. Until the Himalayan courts stop subordinating substantive ecological survival to procedural formalism and administrative deference, the majestic peaks, rivers, and forests of the region will continue to be hollowed out, with legal sanction and with the judiciary watching on.

Note: The 3-part series is based on strong empirical standing. Part I dealt with substantive high court pronouncements coming from resource rich Central and Eastern India- Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. Part II (Western India) closely examined judgements emerging from the high courts of Bombay, Karnataka and Goa.

Part IV (Northern India) reflects on judgments from Delhi, Punjab & Haryana, Uttarakhand and Allahabad.

(The author is part of the legal research team of the organisation)

^[1] This article forms Part III of a three-part series examining environmental jurisprudence in the Trans-Himalayan High Courts. Parts I and II Central India and Western India respectively.

^[2] Mohd. Salim v. State of Uttarakhand, 2017 SCC OnLine Utt 367, Writ Petition (PIL) No. 126 of 2014, Uttarakhand High Court, judgment dated March 20, 2017.

^[3] Lalit Miglani v. State of Uttarakhand, W.P. (PIL) No. 140 of 2015, Uttarakhand High Court, judgment dated March 30, 2017.

^[4] Narayan Dutt Bhatt v. Union of India, 2018 SCC OnLine Utt 645, Writ Petition (PIL) No. 43 of 2014, Uttarakhand High Court, judgment dated July 4, 2018.

^[5] In the Matter of Forest Area, Forest Health, and Wildlife Conservation (Forest Fires Suo Motu Line), W.P. (PIL) No. 174 of 2024, Uttarakhand High Court, orders dated December 31, 2025 and March 18, 2026.

^[6] General Public of Saproon Valley and Ors. v. State of Himachal Pradesh, Civil Writ Petition No. 595 of 1991, Himachal Pradesh High Court, judgment dated April 24, 1991.

^[7] Court on Its Own Motion v. State of Himachal Pradesh (Bathan, Thural Stone-Crusher Line), CWPIL No. 12 of 2019, Himachal Pradesh High Court.

^[8] Gram Panchayats Bhatanwali, Patalia and Behral v. Union of India, Civil Writ Petition, Himachal Pradesh High Court, judgment dated April 16, 2026.

^[9] In the Matter of Unauthorized Mining and Illegal Construction near Dwarahat (Bageshwar), W.P. (PIL) No. 35 of 2024, Uttarakhand High Court, order dated December 31, 2025.

^[10] Syed Iqbal Tahir Geelani v. State of Jammu & Kashmir, PIL No. 27/2017 (formerly PIL No. 159/2002), Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, order dated September 12, 2024.

^[11] Kashmir Environmental Protection v. State of Jammu & Kashmir (Wular Lake Line), PIL No. 14 of 2021, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, order dated August 22, 2024.

^[12] In Re Protection of Seven Ramsar Wetlands in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, Suo Motu PIL No. 35 of 2018, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, order dated August 14, 2024.

^[13] Court on Its Own Motion v. Sonamarg Development Authority, PIL No. 27/2017, Jammu and Kashmir High Court, construction ban baseline order dated October 23, 2017. See also Court on Its Own Motion v. UT of J&K & Ors., Suo Motu PIL No. 27/2017, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, order dated January 3, 2025.

^[14] Alaknanda Hydro Power Co. Ltd. v. State of Uttarakhand & Others, Civil Writ Petition, Uttarakhand High Court.

^[15] Court on Its Own Motion v. UT of J&K, PIL No. 27/2017, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, order dated June 24, 2024.

^[16] The Supreme Court stay in Mohd. Salim was passed in Civil Appeal Diary No. 7699 of 2017. The Lalit Miglani SLP (Civil Appeal Diary No. 7906 of 2017) remains pending as of 2026.

^[17] Citizens for Green Doon v. Union of India, W.P. (Civil) No. 1102 of 2018, Supreme Court of India, judgment dated December 14, 2021.

^[18] Reenu Paul v. Union of India and Others, Writ Petition (PIL) No. 37 of 2025, (2025), High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital

^[19] Inhabitants of Village Dambra v. UT of J&K Th GAD and Ors., LPA No. 185/2023, (2023), High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Jammu

^[20] Inhabitants of Sheva Shirshu Doda v. UT of J&K and Others, WP (C) No. 639/2022, (2023), High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Jammu

^[21] Rinkoo Sharma v. Union of India, WP PIL No. 02/2012 and WP PIL No. 03/2012

^[22] Sumit Nayyar v. Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board and ors., WPPIL No. 14/2016, (2017), High Court of Jammu and Kashmir at Jammu.

Related:

Unending Adjudication: The Vanashakti reversal and environmental finality in India

Cracks in Environmental Jurisprudence: A study of central India’s High Courts

Cracks in Environmental Jurisprudence: The Bombay High Court’s shifting language

The post Himalayan Courts: Young folds & new cracks in environmental jurisprudence appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Appearing before a Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta stated that the Union had decided, “keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case,” to facilitate the return of the deported individuals and examine their claims to Indian citizenship in accordance with law.

“My instructions are, the Government will bring them back, and thereafter will examine their status, and depending on the outcome, will take steps accordingly,” the Solicitor General submitted before the Court, reported LiveLaw.

Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the affected individuals, urged the Court to formally record the Union’s assurance. The Solicitor General agreed, while clarifying that the statement was being made in the exceptional circumstances of the present case and should not be treated as a precedent for future matters involving deportation or citizenship disputes.

As per LiveLaw, recording the submission, the Supreme Court passed an order stating: “The Solicitor General of India submits that keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, and by not treating it as a precedent to be followed in other instances, the Government of India has decided to bring the respondents back to India and to verify the claim of Indian citizenship. Their continuation in India will depend on the outcome of such enquiry.”

The Solicitor General informed the Bench that the process of bringing the individuals back from Bangladesh could take approximately eight to ten days.

The proceedings arise out of a series of habeas corpus petitions concerning Bengali-speaking families who were deported to Bangladesh in June 2025 during identity-verification operations allegedly conducted under a Ministry of Home Affairs directive. In September 2025, the Calcutta High Court had directed the repatriation of several deported persons, including Sunali Khatun, her husband Danish Sekh and their minor son Sabir Sekh, as well as Sweety Bibi and her two sons, Kurban and Imam. The High Court had sharply criticised the “hot haste” with which the deportations were carried out, observing that the affected individuals were removed without adequate inquiry, without a meaningful opportunity of hearing, and in apparent violation of procedural safeguards contained in the Union Government’s own guidelines.

The present development marks a substantial shift in the Union’s position. Earlier, in December 2025, the Centre had agreed to facilitate the return of Sunali Khatun—who was then in an advanced stage of pregnancy—and her young son on what it described as “purely humanitarian grounds.” At the time, the Supreme Court had underscored the need to balance legal enforcement with humanitarian considerations, remarking that some situations required “law to bend to humanity.”

That earlier intervention had followed disturbing findings by the Calcutta High Court regarding the manner in which the deportations were executed. According to the pleadings before the High Court, the affected families, originally from West Bengal but residing in Delhi for livelihood, were detained during an identity-verification exercise and deported to Bangladesh within five days. The High Court had noted that documentary material, including electoral records relating to the deportees’ family members, prima facie indicated Indian lineage and warranted a fuller inquiry before any coercive action could be taken.

While the Union Government has consistently maintained that the deportations were lawful and that the citizenship claims remain disputed, Friday’s undertaking before the Supreme Court indicates that the affected individuals will now be given an opportunity to establish their nationality status within India before any further steps are contemplated.

Related:

SC secures return of pregnant woman and child deported to Bangladesh, says ‘law must bend to humanity’

“All I Wanted Was Peace”: How 55-year-old widow Aklima Sarkar won back her citizenship

From Despair to Dignity: How CJP helped Elachan Bibi win back her identity, prove her citizenship

Calcutta High Court strikes down arbitrary deportations of West Bengal residents, orders return from Bangladesh

Gauhati High Court seeks Centre’s May 2025 deportation notification as legality of re-detention of Abdul Shiekh and Majibur Rehman is scrutinised

Another Pushback Halted: SC stays deportation of woman declared foreigner, issues notice on challenge to Gauhati HC order

CJP Win! Gauhati HC stays deportation of Ajabha Khatun, will address bail demand on April 4

The post Bhodu Sekh Case: Union agrees before Supreme Court to repatriate deported Bengali-speaking individuals pending citizenship inquiry appeared first on SabrangIndia.

[Allahabad High Court judgement delivered on May 15, 2026]

“A group of dacoits clad only in undergarments allegedly carried out multiple robberies in Mustafabad and Sithauli villages [Uttar Pradesh]…Armed intruders reportedly scaled the wall of farmer Nizakat’s house in the early hours of Wednesday [May 20, 2026] and held his family hostage… When resisted, they assaulted the inmates, critically injuring six people…According to the police, the robbers beat women also for keeping a chicken dish at home, and told them to eat only vegetables.”

[The New Indian Express, May 21, 2026]

With RSS cadres in full control of the Indian State, June 2014 onward, the country has become a laboratory for a major dietary fabrication:  that vegetarianism is Sanatan to Hinduism. It is not that prior to Modi’s coming to power the concept did not exist, a substantial and powerful section of the ruling elite including Gandhi were vociferous believers in it. However, it was not a project for which Indian State worked vehemently.

The neo-zealots of vegetarian Hinduism argue that diet was not just nourishment for the body. It was a matter of spiritual realm which shaped “our thoughts, emotions, and karmic vibrations… The Vedas say, ‘Yad annam, tad manas’ which means ‘As is the food, so is the mind’ …Vegetarian food is considered sattvik-pure, calm, and balanced. It nurtures peace, compassion, and mental clarity. Non-vegetarian food, on the other hand, is tamasic- heavy, aggressive, and rooted in destruction. It dulls our spiritual perception and increases lower (read base) tendencies like anger, fear, and restlessness.”

[https://www.adityavastu.in/post/eating-non-veg-and-its-impact-on-karmikta]

With the beginning of Modi era, it became normal to ban sale and consumption of non-veg eatables for long periods during many religious festivals and many areas permanently declared out of bound for selling/consuming it. The issue of food was weaponized and both seller as well as consumers of non-veg cuisine were declared to be evil elements, a threat to Hinduism and society. Another sinister dimension added was that meat consumers were also attacked for indulging in beef-eating. There are countless incidents in public domain when non-veg consumers were attacked, lynched, their houses bulldozed, even burnt.

The zeal of RSS-BJP rulers in enforcing vegetarian Hinduism is to be seen and believed in dealing with foreign dignitaries. President of Russia Vladimir Putin visiting India in 2025 was chief guest at a lavish dinner thrown by India President on December 6, 2025) where only vegetarian cuisines were served. It was no different when EU delegation was State Guest on January 29, 2026, Seychelles President Patrick Herminie was chief guest at State dinner on February 9, 2026 and Vietnamese PM To Lam on May 6, 2026).

Only vegetarian menu of the banquet hosted by President Murmu for Seychelles President. For other dignitaries too it was only vegetarian menu with different dishes. As per a report in NDTV.

Across India, across educational institutions, businesses, railways and social-religious gatherings non-veg food has been banned. Debarshi Dasgupta (Strait Times, May 18, 2026) lamented the fact that in “Uttar Pradesh, a state also governed by the BJP, curated a list of local cuisines from each of its 75 districts and released it in May. It is a list that includes over 200 dishes, but, again, not a single one of them is meat-based. What makes this ludicrous is that more than half of the state’s population (53.6 per cent), according to a government survey, confirmed eating fish, chicken or other kinds of meat. It is also a state celebrated for its meat-based cuisines, particularly its capital, Lucknow, whose kebabs are legendary.”

Interestingly, the kebab “even found specific praise from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), when it added Lucknow to its ‘Cities of Gastronomy’ list in 2025. But when Minister of Culture and Tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat feted this decision on social media, he disingenuously used a poster of food items that were – no surprise here – entirely vegetarian”.

Pushpesh Pant, a renowned Indian academic and food historian as quoted by Dasgupta stated: “It is also a thinly disguised persecution of Muslims, many of whom are perceived to be butchers and vendors of meat and who supposedly are the beef-eaters.” As per a report in Asia News Network.

Varanasi Iftar-on-Boat Arrests

If we want to understand the gravity of weaponization against non-veg consumers and surrender of the State including judiciary, the case known as Varanasi Iftar-on-Boat Arrests needs to be taken note of. According to a detailed report by Shinjinee Majumdar in The Wire (March 27, 2026), the controversy started with a video of March 15 “in which 14 men — Azad Ali, Aamir Kaiki, Danish Saifi, Mohd. Ahmad, Nehal Afridi, Mahfooz Alam, Mohd. Anas, Mohd. Awwal, Mohd. Tahseem, Mohd. Ahmad alias Raja, Mohd. Noor Ismail, Mohd. Tausif Ahmad, Mohd. Faizan, and Mohd. Sameer — were seen breaking their Ramzan-month fast on a boat, allegedly consuming chicken biryani”.

The video was uploaded by one of the group members and soon went viral.  According to The Wire report: “A complaint filed on March 16 by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM)’s Varanasi president Rajat Jaiswal accused them of hurting religious sentiments by consuming non-vegetarian food on the river and disposing of waste into it. The police subsequently arrested 14 men under multiple charges, including hurting religious sentiments, public nuisance and polluting water. Days later, more serious charges — including extortion — were added, significantly raising the legal stakes.”

Jaiswal’s complaint on which Varanasi police took immediate action stated that eating non-veg while riding a boat at Ganga Mother was a grave sin. Moreover, after eating they washed their hands, dumping the waste, thus hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus.

The initial charges against the accused included: Section 298 BNS — Defiling a place of worship with intent to insult a religion, Section 299 BNS — Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings, Section 196(1)(B) BNS — Promoting enmity between groups on religious grounds, Section 270 BNS — Public nuisance, Section 279 BNS — Fouling water of a public spring or reservoir, Section 223(B) BNS — Disobedience of an order by a public servant and Section 24, Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.

Later two more serious charges were added, Section 308(5) BNS — Extortion under threat of death or grievous hurt and Section 67, Information Technology Act — Publishing or transmitting obscene material (linked to the viral video).

With these additions, the potential punishment increased significantly — from a maximum of around six years (under the Water Act) to up to 10 years due to the extortion charge.

According to The Wire report, a Varanasi court had denied bail to the accused on March 23. They had earlier been remanded to 14 days of judicial custody on March 19, until April 1.

However, Allahabad High Court Single Bench of Justice of Rajiv Lochan Shukla granted bail with some conditions to the incarcerated Muslims on May 15. The Judge’s words in the judgement, however, amplified the majoritarian and politicized Hindutva construct of vegetarian Hinduism: “members of the Muslim community having a Roza Iftar party, and during the said Iftar party, while partaking of food, non-vegetarian food is said to have been consumed by the members of the Muslim community, who are then alleged to have thrown the remains into the River Ganges. This fact in the dispassionate opinion of the Court could rightly be said to hurt religious sentiments of the Hindu community.”

[]

The far right propaganda machine of “vegetarian Hinduism” is currently running amok in India belying contents of both scriptures and historical study.

Manusmriti for Meat-eating

According to Hindutva ideologue, VD Savarkar Manusmriti is the go-to scripture after the Vedas for Hindus.

[Savarkar, V.D., ‘Women in Manusmriti’ in Savarkar Samagar (collection of Savarkar’s writings in Hindi) volume IV, Prabhat, Delhi, 2000, p. 416.]

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak sangh, an organisation that is the organizational and ideological fountainhead of the present regime ruling India, made demands that it is the Manusmriti that needs must be declared as the Constitution of India—this at a time when the Indian Constituent Assembly was enacting the Constitution.

[Editorial, RSS English organ, Organiser, ‘The Constitution, November 30, 1949.]

This scripture –Manusmriti–that has been substantively critiqued by Dr BR Ambedkar among many other scholars– glorifies the eating of flesh as we will see in the following.

*That land where the black antelope naturally roams, one must know to be fit for the performance of sacrifices; (the tract) different from that (is) the country of the Mlechas. (II/23)

*[A Brahmin should not eat] food given without due respect, nor (that which contains) meat eaten for no sacred purpose, nor (that given) by a female who has no male (relatives), nor the food of an enemy, nor that (given) by the lord of a town, nor that (given) by outcasts, nor that on which anybody has sneezed. (IV/213);

*‘The consumption of meat (is befitting) for sacrifices,’ that is declared to be a rule made by the gods; but to persist (in using it) on other (occasions) is said to be a proceeding worthy of Rakshasas. (V/31)

*He who eats meat, when he honours the gods and manes, commits no sin, whether he has bought it, or himself has killed (the animal), or has received it as a present from others. (V/32)

*A twice-born man who knows the law, must not eat meat except in conformity with the law; for if he has eaten it unlawfully, he will, unable to save himself, be eaten after death by his (victims). (V/33)

*After death the guilt of one who slays deer for gain is not as (great) as that of him who eats meat for no (sacred) purpose. (V/34)

*But a man who, being duly engaged (to officiate or to dine at a sacred rite), refuses to eat meat, becomes after death an animal during twenty-one existences. (V/35)

*A Brahmana must never eat (the flesh of animals unhallowed by Mantras; but, obedient to the primeval law, he may eat it, consecrated with Vedic texts. (V/36)

*A twice-born man who, knowing the true meaning of the Veda, slays an animal for these purposes, causes both himself and the animal to enter a most blessed state. (V/42)

[This selection of Manu’s Codes is from F. Max Muller, Laws of Manu (Delhi: LP Publications, 1996; first published in 1886). The bracket after each code incorporates number of chapter/number of code according to the above edition.]

Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Meat-Eating

The Arthsastra of Kautilya (Chanakya) is the second go-to book of governance for RSS-BJP rulers and cadres. How dear this treatise is to them can be gauged by the fact that the Modi 3.0 government while organising the Sadhna Saptah (April 2-8, 2026) and Mission Karmayogi declared it to be a basic book  for training Indian administrators along with the Vedas.

Interestingly, the Arthsastra has 67 references decreeing flesh eating. The amazing part is that it has a specific chapter titled ‘Superintendent of Slaughter House’.

[R Shamasastry (trans), Kautilya’s Arthsastra, Mysore Printing and Publishing house,     Mysore, 1915, Pgs 149-53]

According to the rules of the slaughter house, “of beasts of prey that have been captured, the Superintendent shall take one-sixth; of fish and birds (of similar nature), he shall take one-tenth or more than one-tenth; and of deer and other beasts (mrigapasu), one-tenth or more than one-tenth as toll…(Butchers) shall sell fresh and boneless flesh of beasts (mrigapasu deer or wild animal) just killed. If they sell bony flesh, they shall give an equivalent compensation (pratipákam)” [P. 138].

There is no ban on slaughter of cows, however, “cattle such as a calf, a bull, or a milch cow shall not be slaughtered…The flesh of animals which have been killed outside the slaughter-house (parisúnam), headless, legless and boneless flesh, rotten flesh, and the flesh of animals which have suddenly died shall not be sold. Otherwise, a fine of 12 panas shall be imposed [Pgs. 138-39]”.

People are allowed to keep stock of dried flesh, skins, tendons (snáyu)…in such quantities as can be enjoyed for years together without feeling any want. Of such collection, old things shall be replaced by new ones when received. [P. 55]

Referring to different kinds of animals, Arthsastra decrees: “When an animal dies a natural death, they shall surrender the skin with the brand mark, if it is a cow or a buffalo; the skin together with the ear (karnalakshanam) if it is a goat or sheep; the tail with the skin containing the brand mark, if it is an ass or a camel; the skin, if it is a young one; besides the above, (they shall also restore) the fat (vasti), bile, marrow (snáyu), teeth, hoofs, horns, and bones. They (the cowherds) may sell either fresh flesh or dried flesh.” [P. 147]

Kautilya’s cities were not inhabited by vegetarian folks as we find that the chapter ‘Building within the Fort’ allots sites for flesh traders; “To the south, the superintendents of the city, of commerce, of manufactories, and of the army as well as those who trade in cooked rice, liquor, and flesh, besides prostitutes, musicians, and the people of Vaisya caste shall live.” [P. 54]

The chapter titled ‘Superintendent of Store-House’ [p. 101] assigns a duty of collecting taxes/recovery of past arrears to the superintendent from dealers of ‟Clarified butter, oil, serum of flesh, and pith or sap (of plants, etc.)…Dried fish, bulbous roots (kándamúla), fruits and vegetables form the group of edibles (sakavarga)”. [Pgs. 102-103]

The same chapter while dealing with the contents of each meal of an ARYA, low Castes, women and children states: “For dressing twenty palas of flesh, [1000 palas make one tula] half a kutumba of oil, one pala of salt, one pala of sugar (kshára), two dharanas of pungent substances (katuka, spices), and half a prastha of curd (will be necessary). For dressing greater quantities of flesh, the same ingredients can be proportionally increased. For cooking sákas (dried fish and vegetables), the above substances are to be added one and a half times as much. For dressing dried fish, the above ingredients are to be added twice as much.” [P. 105]

Under the head ‘Superintendent of Cows’ the boss has the authority of classifying “cattle as calves, steers, tamable ones, draught oxen, bulls that are to be trained to yoke, bulls kept for crossing cows, cattle that are fit only for the supply of flesh…” [P. 146] According to Chanakya, “When an animal dies a natural death, they shall surrender the skin with the brand mark, if it is a cow or a buffalo; the skin together with the ear (karnalakshanam) if it is a goat or sheep; the tail with the skin containing the brand mark, if it is an ass or a camel; the skin, if it is a young one; besides the above, (they shall also restore) the fat (vasti), bile, marrow (snáyu), teeth, hoofs, horns, and bones. They (the cowherds) may sell either fresh flesh or dried flesh.” [P. 147]

It may be shocking for many animal lovers that the feed for bulls apart from including grass one tulá (100 palas) of oil cakes, 10 ádhakas of bran, 5 palas of salt (mukhalavanam), one kudumba of oil for rubbing over the nose (nasya), 1 prastha of drink (pána) added one tulá of flesh in the daily diet. [P. 148] Daily diet for horse included “50 palas of flesh”. [P. 150]

Likewise, the rations for an elephant (of a specific height) includes “50 palas of flesh” and elephant, watchmen, sweepers, cooks and others shall receive apart from cooked rice, a handful of oil, sugar and salt 10 palas of flesh. [Pgs. 155-158]

The chapter dealing with ‘Remedies against National Calamities’ prescribes a non-vegetarian remedy by stating “Persons acquainted with the rituals of the Atharvaveda, and experts in sacred magic and mysticism shall perform such ceremonials as ward off the danger from demons. On full-moon days the worship of Chaityas may be performed by placing on a verandah offerings such as an umbrella, the picture of an arm, a flag, and some goat’s flesh”. [P. 239]

The Arthashastra makes it clear that tax was collected on flesh. “They (the king’s employees) may demand of cultivators one-fourth of their grain, and one-sixth of forest produce (vanya) and of such commodities as cotton, wax, fabrics, barks of trees, hemp, wool, silk, medicines, sandal, flowers, fruits, vegetables, firewood, bamboos, flesh, and dried flesh.” [P. 274]

The animal flesh/serum was used as medicines/remedies also. “When the body of a man is smeared over with the serum of the flesh of a frog, it burns with fire (with no hurt)…When the body of a man is smeared over with the above serum as well as with the oil extracted from the fruits of kusa (ficus religiosa), and ámra (mango tree), and when the powder prepared from an ocean frog (samdura mandúki), phenaka (sea-foam), and sarjarasa (the juice of vatica robusta) is sprinkled over the body, it burns with fire (without being hurt). When the body of a man is smeared over with sesamum oil mixed with equal quantities of the serum of the flesh of a frog, crab, and other animals, it can burn with fire (without hurt)…paste prepared from the roots of páribhadraka (erythrina indica), pratibala , vanjula (a kind of ratan or tree), vajra (andropogon muricatum or euphorbia), and kadali (banana), mixed with the serum of the flesh of a frog, can walk over fire (without hurt). Oil should be extracted from the paste prepared from the roots of pratibala, vanjula and páribhadraka, all growing near water, the paste being mixed with the serum of the flesh of a frog. Having anointed one’s legs with this oil, one can walk over a white-hot mass of fire as though on a bed of roses. The paste prepared from the powder of the rib-bone of náraka (?), a donkey, kanka (a kind of vulture), and bhása (a bird), mixed with the juice of water-lily, is applied to the legs of bipeds and quadrupeds (while making a journey). The fat or serum derived from roasting a pregnant camel together with saptaparna (lechites scholaris) or from roasting dead children in cremation grounds, is applied to render a journey of a hundred yojanas easy. [Pgs. 458-60.]

Restrictions

“King should prohibit the slaughter of animals for half a month during the period of Cháturmásya (from July to September), for four nights during the full moon, and for a night on the day of the birth-star of the conqueror or of the national star. He should also prohibit the slaughter of females and young ones (yonibálavadham) as well as castration. Having abolished those customs or transactions which he might consider either as injurious to the growth of his revenue and army or as unrighteous, he should establish righteous transactions.” [P. 449.]

Beef Eating Essential for Brahmins in ancient (early) India

Swami Vivekananda, regarded as a philosopher of Hindutva by the RSS, while addressing a meeting at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California, USA (February 2, 1900) on the theme of ‘Buddhistic India’, declared:

“You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef. On certain occasions he must sacrifice a bull and eat it.”

[Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 3 (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1997), P. 536.]

He further stated that without eating beef, “no Brahmin could remain a Brahmin; you read in the Vedas how, when a Sannyasin [a Hindu religious mendicant], a king, or a great man came into house, the best bullock was killed…” [Ibid., P. 174.]

This is corroborated by other research works sponsored by the Ramakrishna Mission established by Vivekananda. According to C. Kunhan Raja, a prominent authority on the history and culture of the Vedic period:

“The Vedic Aryans, including the Brahmanas, ate fish, meat and even beef. A distinguished guest was honoured with beef served at a meal. Although the Vedic Aryans ate beef, milch cows were not killed. One of the words that designated cow was aghnya (what shall not be killed). But a guest was a goghna (one for whom a cow is killed). It is only bulls, barren cows and calves that were killed.”

[Raja, C. Kunhan, Vedic Culture‟, cited in the series, Suniti Kumar Chatterji and others (eds.), The Cultural Heritage of India, vol. 1 (Calcutta: The Ramakrishna Mission, 1993), P. 217.]

Kunhan Raja countering the myth of vegetarian Hinduism stated:

“The Grhya Sutras prescribe different kinds of meat to be given to be given to children at the first feeding ceremony, for different results. Mutton, flesh of different kinds of birds, and other forms of meat were freely eaten by the higher Castes in those days, and still they were the most spiritual nation in the world.” [Ibid.]

One of the greatest researchers, scholar and an authority on Indian politics, religions and culture Dr. BR Ambedkar produced a brilliant essay on the subject titled ‘Did the Hindus Never Eat Beef?’

All those who are really interested in understanding the ‘Hindu Past’ must read this monumental work of Dr. Ambedkar. After studying a large number of Vedic and Hindu scriptures, he arrived at the conclusion that,

“when the learned Brahmins argue that the Hindus not only never ate beef but they always held the cow to be sacred and were always opposed to the killing of the cow, it is impossible to accept their view”.

[Ambedkar, B. R., ‘Did the Hindus never eat beef?’ in The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables? in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, vol. 7, (Government of Maharashtra, Bombay, 1990, first edition 1948) Pgs 323-328.]

Also see the scholarly work by Professor DN Jha, The Myth of the Holy Cow, link: https://archive.org/details/TheMythOfHolyCowJha]

Interestingly, the findings of Ambedkar were that cows were sacrificed and beef consumed because COWS were HOLY.

According to Ambedkar:

“It was not that the cow was not sacred in Vedic times, it was because of her sacredness that it is ordained in the Vajasaneyi Samhita that beef should be eaten.” (Dharma Shastra Vichar in Marathi, Pg. 180). That the Aryans of the Rig Veda did kill cows for purposes of food and ate beef is abundantly clear from the Rig Veda itself. In Rig Veda (X. 86.14) Indra says: ‘They cook for one 15 plus twenty oxen’. The Rig Veda (X.91.14) says that for Agni were sacrificed horses, bulls, oxen, barren cows and rams. From the Rig Veda (X.72.6) it appears that the cow was killed with a sword or axe.”

Ambedkar concluded this essay with the following words:

“With this evidence no one can doubt that there was a time when Hindus, both Brahmins and non-Brahmins, ate not only flesh but also beef.”

[Ibid., Pgs 323-328.]

Anandmath: Sanatan/Hindu Sena consuming flesh

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee is also a Rishi (Holy Teacher) for the RSS-BJP combine. This writer’s otherwise his pro-British novel, Anandmath, is another important (read holy) treatise for votaries of Hindu nationalism. A leader of Santan or Hindu army, Jivananda comes to visit her sister, Nimi who serves him, “some clean, jasmine-white rice, some tasteful dal, a curry of wild figs, some fish netted  [sic] from her own tank and some milk”.

[Sen-Gupta, Nares Chandra (translator Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath), Abbey of Bliss, Padmini Mohan Neogi, Calcutta, P. 65.]

India as a global beef exporter/powerhouse under Modi

India has quietly emerged as global beef powerhouse. The country now ranks as the world’s second-largest beef exporter earning nearly 3.8 billion dollars or around 34,177 crore rupees worth of this meat, annually. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra,, and Andhra Pradesh account for the bulk of these exports with Uttar Pradesh alone contributing nearly 60% of India’s beef shipments.”

[“India Becomes World’s Second-Largest Beef Exporter Amid Cow Vigilante            Violence”, Jan 02, 2026, https://www.deshabhimani.com/deshabhimani-english -/national-76192/india-beef-exports-cow-vigilante-violence-48452]

Fisheries export

Vegetarian India is making great strides in exporting seafood too, to the world.

According to a Government of India (GOI) press release dated April 3, 2026

“India’s seafood exports have recorded strong and sustained growth, expanding at an average annual rate of 7% over the past 11 years. Marine product exports have more than doubled during the period, rising from ₹30,213 crore in 2013‑14 to ₹62,408 crore in 2024‑25, driven largely by shrimp exports valued at ₹43,334 crore. India’s seafood exports span a wide and diversified basket, with over 350 varieties of products shipped to nearly 130 global markets.” [https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2248721&reg=3&lang=1]

Unholy use of the waters of the Holy Ganga

Hindutva’s claim vis a vis Holy Mother Ganga must be taken not just with a pinch, but fistfuls of salt. According to Government of India data Ganga water is supplied to Delhi, Patna, Rajgir, Gaya, Bodhgaya, Bhagalpur, and Nawada (Bihar), Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi and several cities in Western UP, Haridwar (Uttarakhand), and Kolkata (West Bengal). This supply is not for fulfilling some religious duties but for all kinds of cleaning, washing and sanitary purposes.

How is this tolerated? Is it not high time for the courts to intervene?

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

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In Reham Ali v. UT of J&K, decided on May 13, 2026, Justice Rahul Bharti held that the allegations against the detenue, even if accepted at face value, pertained to issues of “law and order” and not “public order” — a constitutionally crucial distinction that determines whether preventive detention laws may legitimately be invoked.

The Court was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Reham Ali challenging his detention under Section 8(1)(a) of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978. The detention order, issued by the District Magistrate, Jammu on October 28, 2025, alleged that Ali’s activities were “prejudicial to the maintenance of public order.”

According to the police dossier submitted by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Jammu, Ali had been implicated in seven FIRs between 2022 and 2025. The authorities relied on these FIRs to portray him as a habitual offender involved in “bovine smuggling,” arguing that substantive criminal law had proved insufficient to restrain him.

However, the High Court noted that all seven FIRs stemmed from a common set of allegations — offences under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 concerning the transportation of cattle or bovine animals.

The judgment carefully dismantled the administration’s attempt to elevate these allegations into a “public order” issue warranting preventive detention. Justice Bharti observed that, at its highest, the allegations disclosed a conventional law-and-order problem capable of being addressed through the ordinary criminal justice system.

The Court stated:

“This Court has no hesitation to hold that the preventive detention of the petitioner is misconceived by reference to maintenance of Public Order as the petitioner, at the best, is a problem on the law and order side for which the provisions of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023 are fully equipped if those are meant to be activated by the law and enforcement agency in realistic manner, but since the District Magistrate, Jammu has come up with a very apologetic assessment that ordinary law of the land has failed that assessment cannot form a basis for ordering preventive detention of a person to deprive him of his fundamental right of personal liberty.” (Para 13)

In a particularly sharp observation, the Court criticised the District Magistrate’s reasoning that ordinary criminal law had “failed” to curb the petitioner’s activities. The judgment held that such an assessment cannot justify suspending a person’s liberty through preventive detention.

The Court’s reasoning is significant because preventive detention jurisprudence has consistently drawn a distinction between breaches of “law and order” and disturbances affecting “public order.” While ordinary criminal offences may disrupt law and order, preventive detention is constitutionally permissible only where activities threaten the even tempo of public life or create wider societal disorder. The judgment reiterates that preventive detention cannot become a shortcut for perceived inadequacies in investigation, prosecution, or enforcement under ordinary criminal law.

The Court also took note of the procedural history of the detention. Ali had been taken into custody on November 1, 2025 and supplied with a 174-page compilation relating to his detention. By the time the petition was adjudicated, he had already undergone six months of preventive detention out of the maximum permissible period of one year.

During the hearing, counsel for the petitioner relied on an earlier decision of the same Bench in HCP No. 4/2024 (Hamid Mohd.), where a similar preventive detention order had been examined.

Ultimately, the Court allowed the habeas corpus petition, quashing both the detention order dated October 28, 2025 and the subsequent approval/confirmation order issued by the Union Territory administration. The authorities were directed to immediately release the petitioner from District Jail Poonch or any other place of detention.

The complete order may be read below:

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The Bench observed that a “perceived divergence” had emerged among different benches of the Supreme Court regarding how K.A. Najeeb ought to be understood in cases involving prolonged incarceration under anti-terror legislation.

The order assumes enormous significance because it directly engages with the growing judicial disagreement over the scope of constitutional courts’ powers to grant bail in UAPA prosecutions despite the restrictive mandate of Section 43D(5), which severely curtails bail where accusations appear prima facie true.

The reference arises in the aftermath of the recent judgment in Syed Iftikhar Andrabi v. National Investigation Agency delivered by a Bench of Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan. That judgment had strongly questioned the correctness of the January 2026 ruling in Gulfisha Fatima v. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi), authored by Justice Aravind Kumar, insofar as it denied bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the Delhi riots conspiracy case.

Detailed piece on Andrabi judgment may be read here and here.

Detailed piece on Gulfisha judgement may be read here.

The Andrabi Bench had observed that Gulfisha Fatima and Gurwinder Singh v. State of Punjab appeared to have adopted an unduly narrow understanding of K.A. Najeeb, which had recognised that prolonged incarceration and the improbability of an early conclusion of trial could justify grant of bail even under stringent anti-terror statutes.

The constitutional question before the court

The present Bench framed the issue as one going beyond the individual bail claims of Tasleem Ahmed and Khalid Saifi. According to the Court, the controversy concerns the “proper constitutional approach” to cases where prolonged incarceration and delay in trial are invoked as grounds for bail despite statutory restrictions under Section 43D (5).

The Bench emphasised that K.A. Najeeb remains an “authoritative pronouncement” of a three-judge bench and preserves “the constitutional force of Article 21” while simultaneously recognising the legislative policy underlying special statutes like the UAPA.

The Court carefully reiterated the essence of K.A. Najeeb: constitutional courts retain the power to grant bail where continued incarceration violates fundamental rights, even in the presence of statutory embargoes. However, the Court stressed that K.A. Najeeb did not establish an automatic or mechanical rule that passage of time alone mandates bail.

In one of the most important observations in the order, the Bench stated:

“The ratio of K.A. Najeeb, therefore, is neither a charter for indefinite incarceration under the cover of Section 43D (5), nor a mathematical command that the mere passage of time, divorced from all surrounding circumstances, must automatically result in bail.” (Para 8)

This formulation is likely to become central to future UAPA litigation because it seeks to position the Court between two competing extremes: absolute deference to statutory restrictions on the one hand, and automatic constitutional override solely on the basis of delay on the other.

Court defends Gulfisha Fatima against criticism in Andrabi

A substantial portion of the order is devoted to defending the reasoning adopted in Gulfisha Fatima, which had granted bail to five Delhi riots accused while denying relief to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam.

The Bench observed that Gulfisha Fatima had expressly recognised K.A. Najeeb as a constitutional safeguard against “unconscionable detention” and had not treated Article 21 as subordinate to Section 43D(5).

The Court reproduced lengthy extracts from Gulfisha Fatima, particularly paragraphs 32, 52 and 53, where the earlier judgment had held that prolonged incarceration is a matter of “serious constitutional concern” but cannot be treated as the “sole determinant” for bail.

The Bench emphasised that Gulfisha Fatima rejected only a “mechanical or solitary application of delay.” Instead, it required courts to undertake a contextual inquiry considering:

• the nature of allegations,
• the role attributed to the accused,
• the stage and trajectory of trial,
• causes contributing to delay,
• prima facie material,
• risks to trial integrity,
• public order concerns,
• and the possibility of witness intimidation.

Importantly, the Court underscored that in Gulfisha Fatima, bail had actually been granted to five out of seven accused persons. Bail was denied to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam only after an “accused-specific evaluation” of their roles and the material against them.

The Bench further pointed out that even while denying bail to Khalid and Imam, liberty had been reserved to renew their pleas after examination of protected witnesses or after one year. This itself, the Court said, demonstrated that Article 21 remained a “continuing constitutional check” and was not excluded from consideration.

In another notable observation, the Court remarked that the present petitioners themselves had relied upon Gulfisha Fatima to seek bail. This, according to the Bench, demonstrated that the judgment could not be understood as one completely subordinating Article 21 to Section 43D(5).

Sharp observations on judicial discipline and coordinate benches

Perhaps the most institutionally significant aspect of the order lies in its observations on judicial discipline and the functioning of coordinate benches.

Without directly criticising the Andrabi judgment, the Bench made clear that a coordinate bench cannot effectively unsettle another coordinate bench merely through strong observations while continuing to sit with equal strength.

The Court observed:

“Judgments of this Court are not to be answered by counter-observations from another Bench of equal strength. The discipline of precedent demands a higher institutional method.” (Para 15)

The Bench stressed that if a coordinate bench entertains reservations about the reasoning of an earlier bench, especially regarding application of a binding larger bench judgment, the proper course is to refer the issue to the Chief Justice of India for constitution of an appropriate larger bench.

In language that appeared to respond directly to the criticism in Andrabi, the Court stated:

“A coordinate Bench may distinguish an earlier decision, may explain its own understanding of the law, and may, in an appropriate case, express doubt. But where the doubt goes to the root of the legal principle applied, the matter cannot be left at the stage of criticism. A doubt expressed in emphatic terms is still a doubt; it is not a declaration of law. Unless resolved by a Bench of appropriate strength, it only introduces uncertainty in the administration of justice.” (Para 17)

The Bench warned that unresolved disagreements between coordinate benches create “uncertainty in the administration of justice” — particularly in matters concerning personal liberty, national security, and anti-terror prosecutions.

Court rejects both extremes in UAPA bail jurisprudence

The order repeatedly attempts to strike a constitutional middle path. On one side, the Court cautioned against an “unqualified reading” that lapse of time alone must compel bail in every UAPA prosecution. According to the Bench, such an approach could prevent courts from considering critical factors such as:

• centrality of the accused’s role,
• protected witnesses,
• risks of intimidation,
• possibility of reactivation of networks,
• public order implications,
• national security concerns,
• and whether delays are attributable to the accused themselves.

At the same time, the Court also rejected an absolute application of Section 43D(5), observing that ignoring prolonged incarceration altogether would “imperil Article 21.” The Bench distilled the controversy into what may become the central constitutional question before the larger bench:

“The question, therefore, is not whether Article 21 survives Section 43D(5). It undoubtedly does. The true question is how Article 21 is to be applied in a statutory field where Parliament has consciously imposed restrictions on bail in respect of offences alleged to affect the security of the State and the stability of civic life.” (Para 21)

Matter referred to larger bench

The Court ultimately concluded that the issue requires authoritative determination by a bench constituted by the Chief Justice of India. Importantly, the Bench clarified that the reference is not confined merely to the correctness of Gulfisha Fatima or Andrabi. Instead, it concerns the broader constitutional approach to bail in prosecutions under special statutes involving prolonged incarceration and restrictive bail provisions. The Court specifically directed that the larger bench should “clarify or expound” the law laid down in K.A. Najeeb, particularly in the backdrop of the rigours of Section 43D(5).

Interim bail to Tasleem Ahmed and Khalid Saifi

Despite making the reference, the Court simultaneously recognised that the present appellants had already undergone substantial incarceration and that the trial was unlikely to conclude immediately.

The Bench observed that the accused “cannot be made to suffer continued incarceration merely because an important question of law has arisen for authoritative settlement.” Accordingly, the Court granted interim bail for six months subject to stringent conditions.

Among the conditions imposed were:

• execution of personal bonds of Rs. 2 lakh with two local sureties;
• surrender of passports;
• prohibition on leaving Delhi without prior permission;
• mandatory appearance before the trial court;
• prohibition on contacting witnesses;
• prohibition on tampering with evidence;
• a restriction on making public statements through print, electronic or social media touching upon the merits of the case or pending trial;
• and a direction to report to the Investigating Officer every fortnight.

The Court also warned that any attempt to delay the trial after release on interim bail would be viewed seriously and could result in cancellation of bail.

Background: The Delhi riots conspiracy case

The present proceedings arise from FIR 59/2020 concerning the alleged larger conspiracy behind the February 2020 North-East Delhi riots during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, in which more than 50 people were killed.

Tasleem Ahmed has remained in custody since his arrest under various provisions of the IPC, UAPA and Arms Act. His bail applications had repeatedly been rejected by lower courts, although the Supreme Court had earlier indicated that he could seek parity with co-accused.

Khalid Saifi, associated with United Against Hate, has spent over five years in custody and has sought parity with co-accused who were granted bail earlier this year. The prosecution alleges that he participated in meetings and WhatsApp groups connected with mobilisation during the anti-CAA protests and delivered inflammatory speeches — allegations he disputes.

The Court had earlier, in January 2026, granted bail to five accused persons including Gulfisha Fatima while refusing bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, setting the stage for the present constitutional controversy over the meaning and reach of K.A. Najeeb.

The complete order may be read below:

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The post Supreme Court refers UAPA bail jurisprudence to larger bench; grants interim bail to Tasleem Ahmed and Khalid Saifi in Delhi riots conspiracy case appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The judgment is remarkable for three interconnected reasons. First, it forcefully restores the constitutional framework laid down in KA Najeeb, which had recognised prolonged incarceration and delay in trial as an independent ground for bail despite the statutory rigours of Section 43D(5) of the UAPA. Second, it openly expresses “serious reservations” regarding the correctness of the January 2026 ruling in Gulfisha Fatima v. State — the judgment that denied bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the Delhi riots larger conspiracy case. Third, it mounts a broader institutional critique against the gradual dilution of larger-bench constitutional precedents through restrictive interpretation by smaller benches.

The judgment must therefore be read not simply as a bail order, but as a constitutional correction to the increasingly punitive trajectory of UAPA jurisprudence.

The Constitutional Foundation: Bail as a principle of liberty, not mere procedure

One of the most significant contributions of the judgment lies in the Court’s attempt to relocate the principle of bail from the narrow confines of statutory criminal procedure into the broader domain of constitutional liberty.

Justice Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, authoring the judgment for both him and Justice Nagarathna, observed:

“The often invoked phrase ‘bail is the rule and jail is the exception’ is not merely an empty statutory slogan flowing from the CrPC as Gurwinder has stated. It is a constitutional principle flowing from Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution and the presumption of innocence which is the cornerstone of any civilised society governed by the rule of law.” (Para 35)

This paragraph is foundational to understanding the judgment. The Court is consciously rejecting the tendency to treat bail merely as a discretionary procedural question. Instead, it roots the concept directly in constitutional structure — specifically Article 21’s guarantee of personal liberty and the presumption of innocence that underlies criminal justice systems governed by the rule of law.

The significance of this reasoning becomes even more pronounced in the context of UAPA prosecutions. Over the past several years, courts have increasingly approached bail under anti-terror statutes through the lens of statutory embargoes alone, often reducing constitutional scrutiny to a secondary consideration. The Andrabi judgment reverses that hierarchy.

The Court unequivocally held:

“The statutory embargo of Section 43-D(5) must remain a circumscribed restriction that operates subject to the guarantee of Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution. Therefore, we have no manner of doubt in stating that even under the UAP Act, ‘bail is the rule and jail is the exception’; of course, in an appropriate case, bail can be denied having regard to the facts of that particular case.” (Para 35)

This observation is doctrinally critical because it clarifies that Section 43D(5) does not override constitutional guarantees; rather, it operates within constitutional limitations. In other words, the Constitution remains supreme even in national security prosecutions. This is perhaps the strongest reaffirmation in recent years that anti-terror legislation cannot create a parallel constitutional order where liberty stands suspended indefinitely.

Reaffirmation of KA Najeeb and the constitutional right against endless pre-trial incarceration

The central doctrinal axis of the judgment is its reaffirmation of Union of India v. KA Najeeb.

The Court repeatedly emphasised that KA Najeeb had already settled the principle that constitutional courts retain the power to grant bail under the UAPA where prolonged incarceration and delay in trial render continued detention constitutionally unjustifiable.

The bench noted that KA Najeeb specifically recognised the structural dangers inherent in Section 43D(5). Because the provision creates an exceptionally stringent threshold for bail, trials that move slowly can result in undertrials remaining imprisoned for years before guilt is determined.

The Court observed:

“A plain reading of Najeeb will show that it was trying to prevent precisely this possibility from arising when it cautioned that Section 43-D(5) must not become ‘the sole metric for denial of bail or for wholesale breach of constitutional right to speedy trial.” (Para 27.8)

This paragraph is perhaps the conceptual heart of the judgment.

The Court is acknowledging that when bail adjudication is governed exclusively by Section 43D(5), and trials continue indefinitely, the criminal process itself begins to inflict punishment irrespective of conviction. The danger identified is not merely procedural delay, but the transformation of pre-trial detention into substantive punishment.

The Andrabi judgment therefore restores the original constitutional logic of KA Najeeb: anti-terror statutes cannot be interpreted in a manner that destroys the right to speedy trial.

Importantly, the Court rejects the argument that KA Najeeb applies only in extraordinary or narrowly exceptional situations.

The Court stated:

“…we make it clear that Najeeb is binding law entitled to the protection of stare decisis. It cannot be diluted, circumvented, or disregarded by trial courts, High Courts or even by Benches of lower strength of this Court.” (Para 39)

This is a direct response to the narrowing interpretations that emerged in later judgments.

Direct Critique of Gulfisha Fatima and Gurwinder Singh

One of the most extraordinary aspects of the ruling is the Court’s explicit criticism of Gulfisha Fatima v. State and Gurwinder Singh v. Union of India.

The Court observed that both judgments appeared to take a “divergent view” from the law laid down in KA Najeeb.

The Bench stated:

“In our view, the decision in Gurwinder inasmuch as it refuses to be bound by Najeeb, is difficult to be followed by us as a matter of precedent. It is plain that a judgment rendered by a Bench of lesser strength is bound by the law declared by a Bench of greater strength. Judicial discipline mandates that such binding precedent must either be followed or, in case of doubt, be referred to a larger Bench. A smaller Bench cannot dilute, circumvent, or disregard the ratio of a larger Bench.” (Para 27.2)

This observation has enormous institutional significance. The Court is effectively warning against a judicial technique where binding precedents are not expressly overruled, but are instead gradually weakened through restrictive interpretation. Such an approach undermines certainty in constitutional adjudication and destabilises the doctrine of precedent.

The Court’s criticism becomes particularly important because both Gulfisha Fatima and Gurwinder Singh, authored by Justice Aravind Kumar, had significantly narrowed the scope of KA Najeeb.

In Gulfisha Fatima, the Court had held that KA Najeeb applied only in exceptional cases. The present bench expressly disagreed with that understanding.

The Court also expressed “serious reservations” regarding the direction in Gulfisha Fatima effectively preventing the accused from seeking bail for one year. This criticism is constitutionally significant because bail adjudication necessarily involves continuing judicial supervision over deprivation of liberty. A blanket embargo on future bail applications risks freezing constitutional scrutiny despite changing trial circumstances.

Rejection of the “two-prong test” and the recognition of punitive pre-trial detention

The judgment contains a particularly powerful critique of the “two-prong test” evolved in Gurwinder Singh.

Under that approach, bail could be considered only if:

1. there was prolonged incarceration; and
2. the accused could also demonstrate that the prosecution case lacked prima facie merit.

The Supreme Court rejected this formulation outright.

Justice Bhuyan observed:

“If this twin-prong test is accepted, the State need only satisfy a low prima facie threshold while the trial may continue for years with the result that pre-trial incarceration begins to acquire a post-trial punitive character and even then, no court could ever grant bail no matter the length of period of such incarceration because the case stood prima facie made out against the accused.” (Para 27.8)

This paragraph is one of the strongest judicial recognitions yet of the phenomenon commonly described as “process as punishment.” The Court identifies the structural reality of UAPA prosecutions: once the State crosses the low threshold of prima facie satisfaction under Section 43D(5), undertrials may remain imprisoned for years because trials move slowly and courts refuse to reconsider liberty claims.

The Court correctly recognised that in such circumstances, incarceration ceases to be preventive or regulatory and instead becomes punitive — despite the absence of conviction. The judgment therefore rejects the idea that constitutional courts must indefinitely defer to prosecutorial allegations where the criminal process itself becomes oppressive.

Limiting the reach of Watali

The Court’s treatment of NIA v. Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali is another crucial aspect of the judgment. Watali has frequently been used to argue that courts should not meaningfully scrutinise prosecution evidence at the bail stage in UAPA cases.

The present bench clarified:

“The position of law emerging from Najeeb and Sk. Javed Iqbal is therefore clear: Watali cannot be invoked to justify indefinite incarceration of the accused under the UAP Act. For the aforesaid reasons, the attempt in Gurwinder to read Watali as laying down a general rule of denial of bail notwithstanding the period of incarceration is difficult to reconcile with this Court’s own subsequent clarification of what the ratio in Watali actually meant.” (Para 27.6)

This clarification is significant because Watali has often functioned in practice as a near-automatic barrier against bail. The Andrabi judgment restores doctrinal balance by clarifying that Watali cannot be interpreted in isolation from constitutional guarantees and from KA Najeeb.

Even where a prima facie case exists, constitutional courts remain obligated to assess whether prolonged incarceration and delayed trial have rendered continued detention unconstitutional.

The Court’s Reliance on NCRB Data: An empirical critique of UAPA incarceration

One of the most striking features of the judgment is its reliance on empirical conviction data.

Referring to NCRB statistics placed before Parliament by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, the Court observed:

“…it is evident that the country-wide percentage of conviction under the UAP Act for the five years comprising the period 2019-23 hovers between 2% to 6%. In other words, there is 94% to 98% possibility of acquittal in such cases in the country. When it comes to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the percentage of conviction is abysmal, to say the least. For the aforesaid period, the annual rate of conviction is always less than 1%. It means that at the end of the trial, there is 99% possibility of acquittal in such cases. With these kind of statistics staring at our face, the question is, should we continue the detention of the appellant or defer the consideration to a later stage, simply because the charges are serious?” (Para 42.3)

This reasoning is extraordinary because the Court explicitly connects low conviction rates with the constitutional legitimacy of prolonged detention. Ordinarily, anti-terror jurisprudence focuses almost exclusively on allegations and national security considerations. The Andrabi judgment shifts attention to outcomes: if acquittal rates are overwhelmingly high and trials take years, then prolonged incarceration cannot be justified solely on the basis of accusation.

This represents a subtle but important constitutional shift. The Court is effectively recognising that the practical operation of the UAPA must be assessed not only in theory but also through its systemic consequences.

Article 21, Speedy Trial, and the Constitutional Crisis of Delay

The Court repeatedly foregrounded Article 21 and the right to speedy trial by observing:

“We do not want to join issue any further with the two-Judge Bench either in Gurwinder Singh or in Gulfisha Fatima. As noted supra, Gurwinder Singh has already been explained in Sheikh Javed Iqbal and in Javed Gulam Nabi Shaikh, reiterated in Arvind Dham, this Court has categorically held that Article 21 applies irrespective of the nature of the offence. Ideally, more serious the accusations are, the speedier the trial should be.” (Para 40)

This statement directly challenges the prevailing judicial logic where grave allegations often justify more restrictive bail standards and slower constitutional scrutiny. The Court instead inverts the framework: the greater the seriousness of allegations, the greater the constitutional obligation upon the State to ensure expeditious adjudication.

The judgment therefore recognises that prolonged detention without trial is not merely an administrative problem; it is a constitutional injury.

The Court’s reasoning implicitly acknowledges a larger systemic reality: UAPA trials often involve enormous witness lists, voluminous documentary records, and prolonged delays that make timely completion virtually impossible. When combined with restrictive bail standards, this creates a carceral structure where accused persons may spend years imprisoned irrespective of eventual guilt or innocence.

Conclusion: A constitutional warning against “punishment through process”

The Andrabi judgment ultimately functions as a constitutional warning against the gradual normalisation of punitive pre-trial detention under anti-terror laws.

The Court restores several foundational propositions:

• that Article 21 survives even in UAPA prosecutions;
• that Section 43D(5) cannot eclipse constitutional liberty;
• that KA Najeeb remains binding law;
• that Watali cannot justify endless incarceration;
• that smaller benches cannot dilute larger-bench precedents;
• and that prolonged delay itself may render detention unconstitutional.

Most importantly, the judgment recognises a reality that has increasingly shaped anti-terror prosecutions in India: where trials take years, conviction rates remain exceptionally low, and bail thresholds are interpreted rigidly, incarceration itself becomes the punishment.

The Court’s intervention is significant precisely because it identifies this not merely as a policy concern, but as a constitutional crisis.

Related report may be read here.

The complete judgment is attached below:

Related:

Supreme Court reasserts KA Najeeb, warns against “hollowing out” constitutional protections in UAPA cases; questions Umar Khalid bail verdict

CJP files complaint against BJP MLA & Minister Nitesh Rane and right-wing leaders over alleged hate speeches in Maharashtra and West Bengal

NSA slapped on journalist, DU scholar in Noida workers’ protest case amid allegations of crackdown on dissent

Caged Voices, Silenced Truths: FSC’s expansive indictment of India’s press freedom crisis

From Cow Slaughter to “Public Order”: Allahabad High Court’s expanding use of preventive detention

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The Supreme Court judgements in Vanshakti I (May) and Vanshakti II (November) have brought an impending sense to the study of environmental law regime in India. Whether the Courts are seeing shift and what that shift means, for the environmental law regime in the country is an important question to ask and engage with.

In pursuance of that question, Part I of this series looked at Central India and tried to read the language of the High Courts as evenly as the language allowed. The pattern that emerged was not of an institutional collapse, nor of unbroken activism, but of a doctrine — the precautionary principle, the polluter-pays principle, public trust — being applied with great care in some cases and with visible accommodation in others. The variable, more often than not, was the size of the economic interest on the other side, and sometimes, the social location of those whose ecology was at stake.

Part II turns to Western India: Mumbai, the rest of Maharashtra, and the long shadow of the Western Ghats. Mumbai is where Indian coastal-zone jurisprudence first acquired teeth, where the public trust doctrine was given some of its most quoted formulations, and where, more recently, the same court has been asked to permit successive infrastructure projects that touch the coast, the mangroves, the urban forest and the Western Ghats ecology. The case law here is therefore unusually self-referential: nearly every important judgment cites the ones before it. That makes it possible to do something that is harder in other regions — to watch the same court engage with the same doctrines across thirty years, and ask whether what changes is the doctrine, the facts, or the framing.

As with Part I, the exercise is not premised on a finding that the judiciary has failed. The starting assumption is the opposite: that the Bombay High Court has been among the more engaged constitutional forums on environmental questions. The probing is for the texture and grammar of that engagement — what language the judges reach for when they are protecting, what language they reach for when they are permitting, and whether the two sets of language can be honestly distinguished.

As before, some Supreme Court context is necessary before turning to the High Court. The Vanashakti split of 2025 — discussed in Part I — sets the contemporary backdrop. The two-judge Bench struck down the Ministry of Environment’s framework permitting ex post facto environmental clearances as contrary to the precautionary principle. The three-judge review, by majority, recalled those directions and held that ex post facto regularisation was permissible in appropriate cases, with polluter-pays as the compensatory mechanism. Justice Bhuyan, dissenting in review, called the recalibration “a step in retrogression”. This part, like the previous one, will also look at whether the Bombay High Court is engaging with the environment law question in this theoretical context of Vanashakti II.

This Part is organised in three sections. The first reads the early jurisprudence — late 1990s and early 2000s — when the High Court and the Supreme Court were articulating the protective vocabulary that still dominates Indian environmental law. The second reads the transitional decade between roughly 2016 and 2022, when that vocabulary began to share space with another — “balance”, “larger public interest”, “exceptional case”. The third reads the most recent cases, from 2024 onwards, which take that second vocabulary as settled and apply it. A short fourth section attempts a hypothesis.

The Baseline: Dahanu, Mahabaleshwar, the Mill Lands, Adarsh

Dahanu and the architecture of localised supervision

The Supreme Court’s decision in Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action v. Union of India (1996) is a good starting point. The Court was dealing with a petition concerning the coastal stretches of India and, in particular, the Dahanu Taluka of Thane District, which the Central Government had declared an ecologically fragile area by notification dated 20 June 1991. The State of Maharashtra had not prepared the master plan that the notification required; in the meantime, balloon-manufacturing units, buffing-and-chromium-plating units, and chemical units had been licensed in what was a predominantly agricultural and orchard area. A 1994 amendment to the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification had also diluted the 1991 framework.

The Court did three things, each of which is worth noticing separately.

First, it accepted as part of Indian law the precautionary principle and the polluter-pays principle, and said so in terms. Second, it struck down the relevant relaxations of the 1994 amendment. Thirdly, in an activist move, it transferred ongoing monitoring of Dahanu to the Bombay High Court, requested the Chief Justice to constitute a “Green Bench” for environmental matters, and directed the Central Government to constitute an authority headed by a retired High Court Judge under Section 3(3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Pollution control, in the Court’s framing, could be “better done by the High Court” because local ecological degradation is best monitored locally.

The language of the judgment records that enacting environmental laws and then not enforcing them “would be more harmful than not enacting laws at all”, phrase that has been quoted by many a subsequent Bombay High Court benches dealing with non-enforcement. In Bittu Sehgal v. Union of India later in 1996, the Supreme Court reiterated the directions, accepted in full the recommendations of the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute on Dahanu, and constituted the Dahanu Taluka Environment Protection Authority.

Mahabaleshwar–Panchgani: the absence of mood-music

The Bombay High Court’s judgment in the Mahabaleshwar–Panchgani PIL (November 18, 1998) is a good case to read for how a court can handle a hill-station ecology problem without dramatising it. The petitioners alleged large-scale illegal construction, deforestation, conversion of agricultural land to luxury bungalows and three-star hotels, and direct discharge of sewage into Venna Lake — the drinking water source for Mahabaleshwar. The Court appointed a six-member committee under a former Commissioner of Pune Division, with a Collector, two Town Planning officers, and a retired military officer. The committee reported approximately 1,060 building and other violations.

The Court’s response, recorded across orders of January, February and April 1998 and consolidated in the final order, was to: (a) direct the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to stop the discharge of polluted water into Venna Lake and the river, with criminal prosecution of erring parties if necessary; (b) direct the Collector of Satara District and the Chief Officer of Mahabaleshwar Municipal Council to take action against erring parties; (c) direct that no further construction in violation of the sanctioned plan be permitted, with show-cause notices to be issued within one month; (d) refuse the benefit of additional Floor Space Index granted to three-star hotels under a 1971 Government Resolution to construction commenced after the 1979/1988 Development Control Rules came into force, while saving the benefit already given; (e) direct relocation of authorised stalls from Venna Lake to a centralised location and removal of all unauthorised stalls; and (f) direct the Heritage Committee to finalise heritage regulations within four months.

What is notable about this judgment is the absence of mood. The judges do not write at the high pitch that later environmental decisions sometimes adopt. They quote the committee report at length, count the violations, name the byelaws, and pass directions that operate as a regulatory timetable for the executive. There is no language of “absolutism” — the order is simply that the development control rules be enforced, with the Pollution Control Board, the Collector and the Municipal Council named as the responsible authorities.

The same court, in the same period, was hearing the Lavasa/new hill-station scheme litigation. In its judgment of 4 December 1998, the Division Bench quashed the letter of intent issued to the Sahara entity to develop a new hill station, noted that there were credible allegations of forced land acquisition from tribals, and directed a State probe into the land transactions. The Court did not declare new hill stations per se unlawful — on the contrary, it accepted the State’s case that population pressure on Mahabaleshwar, Matheran and Panchgani made eco-friendly new hill stations necessary — but it insisted that the regulatory scheme be observed.

The Mill Lands and the working life of the public trust doctrine

The Bombay Environmental Action Group v. State of Maharashtra decision of October 17, 2005 — the Textile Mill Lands case — is one of the more cited Bombay High Court judgments on the public trust doctrine, and it is worth being precise about what it actually decided. The petitioners challenged amendments to Development Control Regulation 58, which governed the redevelopment of about fifty-eight closed textile mills in central Mumbai. The un-amended Regulation had required, in broad terms that the surrendered mill lands be divided equally into three parts: one-third for open spaces and recreation, one-third for low-cost housing for mill workers and for the Municipal Corporation, and one-third for development by the mill owner. The 2001 amendment changed the formula so that the one-third allocations for public space and public housing applied only to the open or vacant portion of the mill land, not to the entire mill land. The effect, in practice, was that very little of the redeveloped land was surrendered for the public purposes for which the original regulation had reserved it.

The Division Bench held that the amended Regulation, read on its plain language, did not achieve what the parties before the Court had assumed it would, and that the Municipal Corporation had not, in fact, ensured surrender of land for open spaces and public housing. The Court read down the regulation by applying “the rule of construction which is more reasonable and just”, and recorded what it called “certain disturbing aspects” — that the Corporation had not insisted on public amenities, had filed only vague particulars of “green areas” without distinguishing public from private greens, and had not ensured the free housing for mill workers that the Regulation contemplated.

The judges placed considerable weight on the trust character of the State’s role. They wrote that the State is “obliged to make available material resources to the community” and that its role “is that of a trustee”, that all properties under such legislation vest in the Government “by way of trust for public good and public purpose”, and that the National Textile Corporation, in trading its land for profit, had acted contrary to the BIFR schemes and earlier Supreme Court orders. The Court also reiterated the standing rule that in PIL the constitutional court is “sentinel on the qui vive” and that “technicalities do not deter the Court in wielding its power to do justice”.

The public-trust register is doing real legal work here — it grounds the Court’s decision to read the amended regulation against the developer’s interest where the Corporation had defaulted on its statutory duty.

Adarsh: demolition as the operative direction

If the Mill Lands case is the public-trust register, the Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society v. Union of India decision of April 29, 2016 is the procedural-rigour register. The Special Bench, after a long judgment running through every stage of the regulatory chronology, concluded that the Adarsh Society had constructed a 31-storey building in a CRZ-II area, on land that had been deleted from a 60.96-metre road reservation to create a residential plot, without ever obtaining environmental clearance from the appropriate authority under the CRZ Notification, 1991, and without recommendation of the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority. Letters dated 11 March 2003 and 15 March 2003 from the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Urban Development Department, on which the Society had relied, were held not to constitute environmental clearance — a conclusion that the Society itself conceded.

The operative direction is in paragraph 377: the Court records that the entire construction is “unauthorized and illegal and in total defiance of provisions of E.P. Act as also M.R. & T.P. Act”, and orders demolition with costs to be recovered from the Society. The Court relies on a long line of Supreme Court authority on demolition of unauthorised construction — Friends Colony Development Committee, Dipak Kumar Mukherjee, M.I. Builders, M.C. Mehta — and quotes with approval the line that “those in power have come forward to protect the wrong doers either by issuing administrative orders or enacting laws for regularization of illegal and unauthorized constructions in the name of compassion and hardship” and that this “has done irreparable harm to the concept of planned development of the cities and urban areas”.

What is striking, again, is the absence of softening language. The Society’s members were largely defence officers and senior bureaucrats. The conduct of the State officers at multiple levels is documented at length. The Court does not soften the operative direction because of any of this. The conclusion is that the building has to come down. The reason is that the regulatory framework — environmental clearance under the CRZ Notification and the Environment (Protection) Act — was not observed, and that the political and bureaucratic seniority of the residents cannot be the basis for regularising what the statute forbids.

Read together, these four cases — Dahanu, Mahabaleshwar, Mill Lands, Adarsh — represent a consistent posture. The court is willing to read statutes against developers where the regulator has defaulted; it does not regard the existence of constructed structures as itself a reason to soften the regulatory consequence; it treats environmental notifications as legal instruments rather than as policy aspirations; and it locates its institutional role in continuing supervision of the executive. The doctrines invoked — precautionary principle, polluter-pays, public trust — are doing identifiable legal work rather than being decorative.

The Transitional Decade: Coastal Road, Aarey, Mangroves, Bullet Train

The four most important Maharashtra environmental decisions between 2018 and 2022 are useful to read together, because they sit on either side of a line that is not always acknowledged but is, on close reading, visible. Two of them — the Mangroves judgment of September 2018 and the Sawantwadi–Dodamarg directions in 2024 — keep the older posture intact. The other two — the Coastal Road decision of July 2019 and the Bullet Train decision of December 2022 — speak the newer vocabulary.

The Mangroves Judgment (2018): a continuation of the older posture

In PIL No. 87 of 2006, decided on September 17, 2018, a Division Bench delivered what is now the operative framework for mangrove protection in Maharashtra. The judgment held that all mangroves fall in CRZ-I irrespective of their size, that a buffer zone of fifty metres around mangroves areas of 1000 sq m or more is also part of CRZ-I, that the destruction of mangroves offends Article 21, and that — invoking the public trust doctrine and Articles 21, 47, 48A and 51A(g) — the State has a mandatory duty to protect and preserve mangroves. The operative directions, contained in paragraph 85-A, declare a total freeze on the destruction and cutting of mangroves in the entire State of Maharashtra; prohibit dumping of rubble, garbage or solid waste on mangroves; prohibit construction within fifty metres of all mangroves regardless of ownership; and direct that no development permission be issued by any authority in respect of any area under mangroves.

It is the next sentence of the same paragraph that becomes important in everything that follows. The Court records that the State “is duty bound to protect and preserve mangroves” and that mangroves “cannot be permitted to be destructed by the State for private, commercial or any other use unless the Court finds it necessary for the public good or public interest”. The freeze, in other words, is not absolute; the Court keeps a window. The exception is narrow on its face — destruction for “public good or public interest”, and only after this Court is satisfied — but its width depends entirely on what later courts treat as falling within it.

The judgment is worth reading closely for what it does doctrinally. The Court locates mangrove protection not merely in the CRZ Notification but in the Constitution itself: the right to life under Article 21, the duty of the State to raise nutrition and public health under Article 47, the directive to protect the environment under Article 48A, and the citizen’s fundamental duty under Article 51A(g). The public trust doctrine is invoked not as ornamental rhetoric but as the juridical basis for the State’s mandatory duty. The fifty-metre buffer zone around mangroves of 1000 sq m or more is treated as an integral part of the CRZ-I category, meaning that the protective zone carries the same prohibitions as the mangroves themselves. The practical effect is significant: in a densely urbanised coastline like Mumbai’s, a fifty-metre radius around every substantial mangrove patch removes large areas from the developable land pool. The judgment also appoints the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority and the Forest Department as the responsible agencies, and directs them to submit quarterly compliance reports. The Court’s own supervisory jurisdiction is expressly reserved. What the judgment creates, in other words, is a protective framework with judicial oversight — one that treats mangroves as constitutionally protected natural resources and permits their destruction only through a narrow, court-supervised exception.

The Coastal Road decision (2019): the architecture of the “exceptional case”

The Bombay High Court’s decision in Worli Koliwada Nakhwa and the connected petitions, dated  July 16, 2019, is a 200-plus page judgment, and the analysis that follows here is confined to its doctrinal architecture rather than its full factual record. Two questions were before the Court. First, was the amendment of 30 December 2015 to the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 2011 — which permitted reclamation of coastal land for roads “in exceptional cases” — ultra vires the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, or unguided delegation? Second, was the CRZ clearance granted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests on 11 May 2017 for the Mumbai Coastal Road project liable to be quashed for failure to undertake the rigorous appraisal that the law required?

On the first question, the Court upheld the 2015 amendment. The petitioners’ argument that “exceptional case” was an unguided phrase that could mean anything was rejected. The Court’s reasoning is set out at paragraph 134 and is worth quoting because it is the doctrinal hinge of the rest of the judgment:

“In situations where Rules governing the sustainable development and preservation of the ecology are framed, the exceptional case to such development at cost of ecology has to be looked from the point of view of the necessity of development reaching the level of such great utilitarian value that what is lost or sacrificed must be accepted.”

This is not the language of the 1996 Dahanu order, nor of the 1998 Mahabaleshwar judgment, nor of the 2005 Mill Lands decision, nor of the 2016 Adarsh judgment. It is a different register. It accepts, as a starting premise, that there will be situations in which development reaches a level of utilitarian value such that ecological sacrifice must simply be accepted; and the role of the Court is to satisfy itself that the decision-making process underlying that acceptance has been followed. To refine the test — the need has to be “more than a crying need”, it “has to be a need based on exhausting all possible solutions”, and “upon material showing that the need is bordered between a crying need and dying need, a deep and pervasive environmental impact assessment has to be done”.

Applied to the facts, the Court did quash the immediate CRZ clearance. The reason was that the Mumbai Coastal Road, as planned, had been split into two segments and the project proponent had submitted its application only for the segment from Princess Flyover to the Worli end of the Bandra–Worli Sea Link; the Joint Technical Committee report relied on was from 2011 (using 2008 traffic data) and did not address the cumulative impact of the entire road; the appraisal had been done under the CRZ Notification, 2011 and not also under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006 even though the project arguably attracted entry 8(b) of the EIA Schedule; and the Expert Appraisal Committee had not given reasons for accepting the project proponent’s responses to public objections. The clearance was quashed for these procedural inadequacies.

But the framework — that ecology can be sacrificed where the utilitarian value of the development is great enough — was left standing. And, indeed, when the matter went to the Supreme Court and the project resumed, that framework controlled. By 2024, the question before the Supreme Court was no longer whether the road should have been built, but whether the Municipal Corporation could carry out landscaping and beautification on the median of the now-built road, given that an interim order of September 13, 2022 had restrained commercial use of the reclaimed land. The Supreme Court’s order of November 7, 2024 holds:

“The restraint which was imposed in the order of this Court dated September 13, 2022, must be construed in a reasonable manner. The State having reclaimed land from the sea for the purpose of constructing the coastal road, the interim order was passed in order to ensure that the reclaimed land is not put to commercial use or purposes… bearing in mind that the public interest litigation principally dealt with an environmental issue, there can be no objection to the Municipal Corporation being permitted to carry out landscaping of the median of the coastal road over a length of 4.35 kilometers approximately as stated during the course of the submissions.”

This is the framework working itself out across instances. The reclamation was permitted in 2019 (subject to procedural rigour); the procedural rigour was eventually satisfied; the building was completed; and the embargo on commercial use of the reclaimed land was “construed in a reasonable manner” to permit landscaping. None of these moves is, taken on its own, unreasonable. What is worth noticing is that the cumulative effect of “reasonable construction” is that the framework that was supposed to protect the coast from being put to road and ancillary use has, step by step, accommodated the road and its appurtenances.

Aarey (2019): comity and res judicata

The Aarey Metro Car Shed judgment of October 4, 2019 — delivered by the same Chief Justice who delivered Worli Koliwada and by a different second judge — is shorter and turns on procedures. Petitioners sought a declaration that 1,280 hectares of the Aarey Milk Colony be declared a Reserved or Protected Forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927, and that the State be restrained from non-forest activities, particularly the construction of a metro car shed on 33 hectares of the colony.

The Court records the documentary material the petitioners relied on: the 1980 letter from the Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra advising that Aarey be declared a Reserved Forest; the 2004 letter from the Governor of Maharashtra to the Chief Minister on the encroachment of Aarey lands; the 2015 report of the State Technical Committee which, as primarily recommended, located the metro car depot at Kanjur Marg, with only a small stabilising unit at Aarey; the dissenting notes by environmental experts from IIT Bombay and NEERI recommending that Aarey be preserved as forest; the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre’s 2006 scientific imagery showing thick vegetation; and the position of the Forest Department in affidavits before the National Green Tribunal.

The Court did not engage with this material on the merits. Its dismissal rested on two procedural doctrines. The first was that the substantive question of whether Aarey was a forest was pending before the Supreme Court in T.N. Godavarman, and the question of the eco-sensitive zone around Sanjay Gandhi National Park was pending before the National Green Tribunal in OA No. 193/2016. The Bench held that, under the principle of comity, the appropriate forum was the Supreme Court (for forest declaration) and the National Green Tribunal (for the eco-sensitive zone). The second was that a coordinate Bench had already, on October 26, 2018 in W.P. (L) No. 2766 of 2017 (Amrita Bhattacharjee), rejected the challenge to the August 2017 and November 2017 notifications under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 that had de-reserved the 33 hectares for the metro car depot. The principles of res judicata applied. The petitions were dismissed.

The procedural treatment is unobjectionable in its own terms — comity and res judicata are settled doctrines. What is worth marking is the distance between the volume of ecological material recorded in the judgment and the absence of any judicial engagement with that material. The Court holds that this material must be evaluated elsewhere; it does not itself evaluate it. By contrast, in 1997, the Mahabaleshwar Bench did not refer the question of unauthorised hill-station construction to a tribunal — it appointed a committee, received a report counting violations, and passed binding directions. The change is not in the substantive law on forests or on coastal regulation; it is in the institutional posture of the Court when faced with a multi-billion-rupee public infrastructure project that is already underway.

The Bullet Train (2022): the “public good” window opens

In National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra, decided on 9 December 2022, the petitioner sought permission to fell mangroves within CRZ-I for the Mumbai–Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (Bullet Train) project. The factual scale is recorded in the judgment: the total alignment is 508.17 km, of which 155.642 km is in Maharashtra; the total land requirement in Maharashtra is 438.536 hectares; the area falling under mangrove forest is 32.4302 hectares; the area of mangroves directly to be affected is 13.3668 hectares, with 53,467 trees.

The Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority had initially deferred the proposal, in view of the 2018 Mangroves judgment, and had suggested that the project proponent approach the High Court. By interim order of 12 February 2019, the Court directed the MCZMA to take a decision on the proposal, observing that the Division Bench in PIL 87/2006 had itself “carved out a clause wherein a permission can be granted if it is necessary for the public good or the public interest”. The MCZMA then granted clearance on 6 March 2019. The Ministry of Environment and Forests gave its clearance. The petition before the High Court was, in effect, for permission under the 2018 judgment’s carve-out.

The Court granted the permission. The reasoning runs through the advantages of the project that the petitioner had pleaded — connectivity between Mumbai and Ahmedabad; reduction of travel time from six and a half hours to two and a half; lower carbon footprint than vehicular traffic; international funding on favourable terms from the Japan International Cooperation Agency at 0.1 per cent interest; generation of approximately 20,000 jobs during construction and 20,000 direct and indirect jobs in operations. The Court records the petitioner’s Integrated Mangrove Conservation and Management Plan, the proposed compensatory afforestation, and the clearance position of the regulators. It concludes that the project is in the public good and public interest within the meaning of the 2018 judgment, and permits the cutting of the 13.3668 hectares of mangroves.

The observation here is narrow. The 2018 carve-out was framed to apply where the Court was satisfied that destruction of mangroves was necessary for public good or public interest. The Bullet Train Bench reads that carve-out as activated by the very features of the project that any large public-infrastructure proponent will plead: connectivity, employment, foreign funding, lower carbon footprint than the existing transport mix. None of these features is irrelevant. The question is whether they are sufficient. The Court’s answer is that, in this case, they are; and the answer is given without an explicit framework for distinguishing this case from one in which the answer would be no. The mangroves are felled, the compensatory afforestation is fixed (1:3 ratio), and the public-trust framework’s exception clause begins to do significant work.

The Present: Sawantwadi–Dodamarg, Bandra Reclamation, Versova–Bhayandar

Sawantwadi–Dodamarg (2024): persistence as a substitute for declaration

The Awaaz Foundation / Vanashakti judgment of 22 March 2024 disposes of two Public Interest Litigations pending since 2012 and 2014, both seeking the declaration of the Sawantwadi–Dodamarg corridor — a 35 km stretch of about 25 villages on the Maharashtra–Goa border, identified by the Sen Committee, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel and a 2022 Wildlife Institute of India study as a critical wildlife corridor — as an Ecologically Sensitive Area under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

The Court records, with what reads as careful patience, the full chronology. Orders had been passed since 2012. The State of Maharashtra had not disputed, in successive affidavits, that the corridor was ecologically vital. The State had ultimately commissioned the Wildlife Institute of India study, which concluded — in the language quoted at length by the Court — that 36 villages covering approximately 338 sq. km, where forest habitats are still intact, should be declared as ESA in order to retain landscape connectivity with the Goa and Karnataka conservation landscape. The Union government had no substantive objection; what it had was the position that declaration depended on the State’s formal proposal. The State, on the other hand, said the proposal would be sent to the Union government. The corridor had, in the meantime, lost approximately 18 lakh trees in two years of felling in the Dodamarg forest circle alone.

On March 22 , 2024, after twelve years of litigation, the Court issued time-bound directions: the State to submit a proposal to declare the 25 villages as an ESA within four months; the Union government to initiate the procedure within two months thereafter and issue final notification “as early as possible, preferably within four months”; the interim restraint on tree-cutting to continue until final notification; and a Task Force of the District Collector, Deputy Conservator of Forests and Superintendent of Police, Sindhudurg, to ensure compliance, publish a dedicated email and helpline for complaints, and report violations.

Two features of this judgment deserve to be marked. First, the Court does not adopt the language of “balance” or “larger public interest” anywhere in the operative portion. There is no developer on the other side of the case who has to be accommodated; the case is between a State that has agreed in principle and a Union government that needs the State’s piece of paper. Where that is the structure, the older posture re-emerges intact — that ecological declaration must follow on the documentation that has been before the Court for a decade, and that further delay is not acceptable. Second, and relatedly, the Court chooses a structural remedy: not a one-time order, but a Task Force with a helpline, and continuing responsibility on three named officers. The institutional posture of the 1996 Dahanu order — local supervision through specifically named authorities — survives in this kind of case.

The Bandra reclaimed land (2025): the conditions of clearance, twenty-six years later

The Bombay High Court’s judgment of August 26 , 2025 in the connected petitions of Bandra Reclamation Area Volunteers Organisation and Zoru Darayus Bhathena arises from a regulatory chronology that goes back to the construction of the Bandra–Worli Sea Link in 1999–2000. The Ministry of Environment and Forests had granted environmental clearance on 7 January 1999 for that project. Condition (viii) of that clearance, as amended on 26 April 2000, was that reclamation should be kept to the bare minimum, not exceeding 4.7 hectares and subsequently expanded to 27 hectares; and that on the landward side of the road, within 100 metres, no commercial activity other than toll collection would be permitted. The Chief Secretary of Maharashtra had, in a letter to MoEF on 10 February 2000, given the assurance that the reclaimed land “will be kept as open space/garden and no commercial exploitation will be done”.

In 2024, the State Government transferred 24 acres of the reclaimed land to Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, which proceeded to invite tenders for commercial development of the plot. The petitioners contended that the proposed development violated the 1999/2000 conditions, that the conditions survived the 2011 and 2019 CRZ Notifications, and that MSRDC — a corporation constituted by Government Resolution for road development — could not in any event undertake commercial development.

The Court rejected each contention. On the survival of the conditions, it held that the 1999 clearance had been granted under the 1991 CRZ Notification, that the conditions were referable to and integral with that Notification, and that successive Notifications in 2011 and 2019 had altered the regulatory framework in respects that did not preserve the original conditions. On the maintainability of MSRDC undertaking development, it held that once the State Government decided to transfer ownership of the land to MSRDC for the purpose of developing it, the Court could see no illegality in MSRDC doing so. The petitions were dismissed.

The Court’s reasoning is internally consistent. The 1999 clearance was issued under the 1991 Notification; the 1991 Notification has been replaced; the conditions in the clearance were not, on the Court’s reading, saved by the saving clauses of the new Notifications; and the State, having become the owner, can decide on the use of its property. What is worth marking is the structure of the result: a regulator’s clearance issued in 1999, conditioned by an assurance in 2000 that the land would be kept as open garden, is read in 2025 as no longer binding the State, by reason of subsequent regulatory changes that the State itself promulgated. The reclaimed land at the foot of the Bandra–Worli Sea Link was reclaimed on the strength of those very conditions; the conditions, twenty-six years later, do not survive the regulatory updating.

Whether this reading is correct as a matter of doctrine — and there are real arguments on the survival of clearance conditions— is not the question being asked here. The point is the framing. The Court treats the conditions as procedural artefacts attached to a specific notification, rather than as substantive undertakings made to the Court that supervised the original project. That is a different way of reading 1999 than the Mill Lands Bench, in 2005, would have read it. The real visible difference between this case and the case of Sawantwadi–Dodamarg and Bandra Reclamation is that the Bandra Reclamation project involved a high stakes road project.

Versova–Bhayandar (December 2025): the operationalisation of the carve-out

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation v. Union of India decision of December 12, 2025 is the application, three years after the Bullet Train, of the same 2018 carve-out to a different infrastructure project. The Corporation sought permission to fell mangroves for the Versova–Bhayandar coastal road, a 26.32 km extension that would link the existing Mumbai Coastal Road northwards. The estimated cost is approximately Rs. 18,263 crores. The Rapid Environment Impact Assessment Report records that approximately 102 hectares of forest land, mostly mangroves, would be required; that 60,000 mangrove trees are in the project’s zone of influence and may be affected; and that the project would inevitably destroy approximately 10 hectares of mangroves (about 9,000 trees) under the actual bridge and road footprint.

The Court records that all statutory permissions up to that stage had been obtained, that compensatory afforestation in the ratio of 1:3 is provided for (1,37,025 mangrove trees on 30 hectares of degraded mangrove forest at Bhayandar, with Rs. 17.74 crores deposited towards plantation and ten-year maintenance), and that compensatory afforestation of an equivalent 103.70 hectares of non-forest land at Vihirgaon in Chandrapur, contiguous with the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve buffer, will be undertaken at the petitioner’s cost. A further Rs. 233.98 crores has been earmarked for restoration and compensatory measures within an Integrated Coastal Management framework, with the Environment Management Plan contractually embedded in the project’s execution and disbursement schedule.

The reasons recorded for granting the permission are: that the project decongests three congested arterial roads (Western Express Highway, Link Road, S.V. Road); that it reduces travel time from 120 minutes to 18 minutes; that it is expected to reduce daily fuel consumption by approximately 7,82,355 kg, and annual CO₂ emissions by approximately 14,686,304 tonnes; that the project is a permissible activity under the 2019 CRZ Notification clauses 5.1.1(ii) and (iii); that the petitioner has built in extensive mitigation; and that, on the basis of the petitioner’s affidavits and the regulators’ clearance, this is a case for invoking the carve-out under paragraph 87(viii) of the 2018 Mangroves judgment.

The Court grants the permission and imposes a continuing-mandamus structure: the Corporation must file an interim application with annual compliance affidavits, signed by the Municipal Commissioner, MCZMA Mangrove Cell and the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, for the next ten years, automatically listed on the third Friday of January every year. Failure to file would be contempt.

Three observations are worth making about this judgment. First, the doctrinal pathway from 2018 to 2025 is now fully formed. The 2018 freeze on mangrove destruction is intact in form: every developer who wants to fell mangroves must come to the Court. The exception in 2018 — “public good or public interest” — has been read in 2022 (Bullet Train) and 2025 (Versova–Bhayandar) to cover infrastructure projects of demonstrable utility, where compensatory afforestation is offered. Whether anything other than a project of demonstrable utility could ever reach the threshold for invoking the exception is left open; the cases that have invoked it have not been refused. Second, the supervisory architecture of the 1996 Dahanu order — periodic compliance, named officers, calendarised review — survives, but it is now used to supervise mitigation rather than to monitor compliance with a prohibition. The Court does not stop the destruction; it monitors the compensation and mitigation. Third, the language is precise and unsentimental. There is no rhetoric of “absolutism” or of “sustainable development” being a sword. The judgment is, in tone, indistinguishable from a tribunal order approving a mitigation plan.

The Reading

The first register — Dahanu, Mahabaleshwar, Mill Lands, Adarsh, Mangroves 2018, Sawantwadi-Dodamarg 2024 — treats environmental notifications as instruments of statute that bind the State and its instrumentalities, treats developers as parties whose interests do not survive their own non-compliance, and uses the public trust doctrine, the precautionary principle and the polluter-pays principle as substantive tests rather than as rhetorical flourishes. The second register — Worli Koliwada 2019, Aarey 2019, Bullet Train 2022, Bandra reclamation 2025, Versova-Bhayandar 2025, — treats the same doctrines as structuring questions in which the Court’s role is to satisfy itself that the regulatory process has been followed, and treats the existence of a substantial, completed or under-construction infrastructure project as a feature of the case that conditions the available remedies.

Neither register is unprincipled. The transitional cases do not pretend to be applying the absolutist test of the older cases; they openly say that ecological sacrifice is acceptable where the utilitarian value of the development is great enough, and they invoke compensation and mitigation as the relevant remedial axis. The older cases do not pretend to be applying a balancing test; they say the regulation must be enforced and that demolition is the remedy.

What the two registers have in common is that the variable is not the language of the doctrine but the magnitude of the economic interest on the other side. Where the case is between citizens and a defaulting regulator — Dahanu, Mahabaleshwar, the mill lands, the mangrove freeze in the abstract, the Sawantwadi-Dodamarg corridor — the protective register holds. Where the case is between citizens and a partially or fully built infrastructure project of substantial cost — the coastal road, the metro depot, the bullet train, the sea-link reclamation, the second-stage coastal road extension — the accommodative register operates. The shift is not always visible at the level of language; it is visible at the level of outcome.

The Year 2026: Continuation and Consolidation

The Mumbai Air Pollution Suo Moto (January 2026): institutional response to systemic failure

The first 2026 judgment of significance is not, strictly speaking, a judgment on an environmental doctrine. In High Court on Its Own Motion v. State of Maharashtra, SM PIL No. 3 of 2023, decided on 29 January 2026, the Bombay High Court constituted a High Power Committee to monitor air pollution in Mumbai and directed the State to formulate a comprehensive action plan. The case had originated from the Court’s own motion, based on media reports about severe air quality deterioration. The Court noted that Mumbai’s Air Quality Index had breached 300 on multiple occasions in late 2025, placing it in the “severe” category. What makes the judgment significant for this analysis is its institutional orientation: instead of adjudicating specific disputes, the Court created a permanent monitoring mechanism, directed the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to install real-time monitoring stations at 150 locations, and required monthly compliance reports. The language is directive rather than accommodating — the Court treats executive inaction as a systemic failure requiring structural correction. The judgment sits at the opposite pole from the Coastal Road or Bullet Train decisions: where those cases involved large projects seeking permission, this case involved no project at all, only the State’s failure to perform its regulatory function. The judicial response is correspondingly more protective.

The Versova–Bhayandar Supreme Court stay refusal (March 2026): ratification from above

On  March 20, 2026, the Supreme Court refused to stay the Bombay High Court’s December 2025 order permitting the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to cut mangroves for the Versova–Bhayandar coastal road. The application for stay was filed by environmental groups who argued that the High Court had effectively pre-judged the matter by imposing conditions rather than independently assessing the ecological impact. The Supreme Court’s refusal is procedurally brief — no detailed reasoning is offered — but its effect is doctrinally significant. It means that the highest court has, at least at the interim stage, accepted the High Court’s framework of conditional permission as a legitimate exercise of judicial discretion under the 2018 Mangroves judgment. For project proponents, this is a further signal that the carve-out is judicially safe. For environmental litigants, it raises the threshold for future challenges: if the Supreme Court will not interfere with a High Court permission order that conditions rather than prohibits, the available doctrinal route becomes narrower.

The Thane elevated road and Wood Court (April–February 2026): peripheral reinforcement

Two further 2026 judgments complete the picture. In MMRDA v. Union of India, WP No. 3538 of 2026, decided on April 6, 2026, the Court permitted diversion of 0.2145 hectares of mangrove forest for an elevated road from Anand Nagar to Saket in Thane, again under the 2018 carve-out, with conditions including 1:3 compensatory afforestation and Rs. 5.67 crores for restoration. The scale is smaller than the Metro or Bullet Train projects, but the doctrinal framework is identical. In Wood Court Co-operative Housing Society v. State of Maharashtra, decided on February 2 , 2026, the Court addressed a private residential society’s challenge to the fifty-metre mangrove buffer zone, which the society claimed rendered its land undevelopable. The Court rejected the challenge, holding that the buffer zone was an integral part of the 2018 judgment’s protective framework and that private hardship did not constitute the “public good or public interest” exception. The judgment is significant for what it refuses: private developers cannot invoke the carve-out. The exception is available only to public infrastructure projects.

Conclusion

The hypothesis, stated for what it is: when a court is asked to enforce an environmental rule against an executive that has defaulted on its own scheme, it tends to enforce. When a court is asked to enforce the same rule against an executive that has, through bureaucratic and political channels, committed thousands of crores to a project that is now under construction or complete, it tends to find the route through doctrines of comity, finality, exception, and reasonable construction that permits the project to proceed, with compensation. The 2018 carve-out — “public good or public interest” — has, in the cases decided so far, been read to cover every infrastructure project that has come before the Court asking for permission, and to be refused in none. Whether this is a stable equilibrium for the next decade of cases is the question that Part III of this series, on Northern India, will try to test against a different region’s record.

The Maharashtra story, on its own terms, suggests something narrower. It suggests that the doctrines themselves are not in retreat. The precautionary principle is invoked in 2024 with the same vocabulary it was invoked with in 1996. The public trust doctrine still grounds the freeze on mangrove destruction. What has changed is the universe of cases that are now considered, on their facts, to lie outside the protective core of these doctrines. The core has not shrunk in language; the periphery — the set of cases acknowledged to fall within the “exceptional” or “public-interest” exception — has expanded. The question, going forward, is whether the periphery now contains everything that any State or public-sector project proponent can plausibly plead, in which case the core protects only the cases that no developer has yet thought to bring.

(Part I has been published here. Parts IV of this series will extend the inquiry to Northern India and the Southern States respectively, with a concluding piece attempting a national reading.)

Note:

The 3-part series is based on strong empirical standing. Part I dealt with substantive high court pronouncements coming from resource rich Central and Eastern India- Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. Part II (Western India) deals with the high courts of Bombay, Karnataka and Goa. Finally, Part III (Northern India) reflects on judgments from Delhi, Punjab & Haryana, Uttarakhand and Allahabad.

(The author is part of the legal research team of the organisation)

[1] Vanashakti v. Union of India, decided 16 May 2025 (Supreme Court of India, Bench: Oka & Bhuyan, JJ.). Striking down MoEFCC Notification S.O. 804(E) dated March 14, 2017 and Office Memorandum dated July 7, 2021.

The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, §§ 3, 6 read with the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006 (S.O. 1533(E), dated September 14, 2006).

Vanashakti Review – Order on Review Petition (Nov. 2025), three-Judge Bench, majority opinion by the Chief Justice of India with Vinod Chandran, J., concurring; Bhuyan, J., dissenting.

[2] Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action v. Union of India, (1996) 5 SCC 281 (Kuldip Singh and S. Saghir Ahmad, JJ.).

[3]Bittu Sehgal v. Union of India, W.P. (C) No. 231 of 1994, order of the Supreme Court of India dated 31 October 1996, reported at (2001) 9 SCC 181, transferring the Dahanu Taluka matters to the Bombay High Court for monitoring through a ‘Green Bench’.

[4]Bombay Environmental Action Group v. State of Maharashtra (Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani Petition), W.P. No. 2754 of 1997, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 18 November 1998 (M.B. Shah, C.J. and S. Radhakrishnan, J.).

[5]Bombay Environmental Action Group v. State of Maharashtra, (1999) 1 Bom CR 455, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 4 December 1998 (B.P. Desai and A.P. Patankar, JJ.).

[6]Bombay Environmental Action Group v. State of Maharashtra (Textile Mill Lands), judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 17 October 2005, concerning the redevelopment of approximately fifty-eight textile mills in central Mumbai under amended Development Control Regulation 58.

[7]Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society Ltd. v. Union of India, W.P. No. 369 (Chamber) of 2011, judgment of the Bombay High Court (Special Bench) dated 29 April 2016 (Ranjit More and R.G. Ketkar, JJ.).

[8]Bombay Environmental Action Group v. State of Maharashtra, PIL No. 87 of 2006, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 17 September 2018 (A.S. Oka and Riyaz I. Chagla, JJ.), commonly known as the Mangroves Judgment.

[9]Worli Koliwada Nakhwa Matsya Vyavasaya Sahakari Society Ltd. v. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, W.P. (L) No. 560 of 2019 and connected petitions (Society for Improvement, Greenery and Nature; Conservation Action Trust; Prakash Laxman Chanderkar; Shweta Wagh), judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 16 July 2019 (Pradeep Nandrajog, C.J. and N.M. Jamdar, J., delivered through opinion of the Chief Justice on 4 October 2019).

[10]Aseem Shrivastava and Ashish Kothari, Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India (Penguin Viking, 2012), discussing the political economy of environmental clearance and the pressure on regulatory institutions to accommodate large infrastructure projects.

[11]Vanashakti v. State of Maharashtra (Aarey Metro Car Shed Petition), W.P. No. 1487 of 2019, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 4 October 2019 (Pradeep Nandrajog, C.J. and Bharati Dangre, J.).

[12]National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra, W.P. No. 442 of 2020, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 9 December 2022 (Dipankar Datta, C.J. and Abhay Ahuja, J.).

[13]Awaaz Foundation v. Union of India, PIL No. 179 of 2012, with Vanashakti v. Union of India, PIL No. 198 of 2014, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 22 March 2024 (Nitin Jamdar and M.M. Sathaye, JJ.).

[14]Bandra Reclamation Area Volunteers Organisation v. Union of India, PIL (L) No. 8224 of 2024, and Zoru Darayus Bhathena v. Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, PIL No. 22 of 2024, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 26 August 2025 (Sandeep V. Marne, J. and the Chief Justice).

[15]Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation v. Union of India, W.P. No. 3790 of 2025, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 12 December 2025 (Shree Chandrashekhar, C.J. and Gautam A. Ankhad, J.), permitting the felling of mangroves for the Versova-Bhayandar coastal road extension.

[16]High Court on Its Own Motion v. State of Maharashtra, SM PIL No. 3 of 2023, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 29 January 2026 (A.S. Oka, C.J. and G.S. Kulkarni, J.), constituting a High Power Committee for monitoring air pollution in Mumbai.

[17]The Supreme Court declined to interfere with the Bombay High Court’s conditional permission for mangrove cutting in BMC v. Union of India, WP No. 3790 of 2025, order dated 20 March 2026.

[18]MMRDA v. Union of India, WP No. 3538 of 2026, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 6 April 2026, permitting diversion of 0.2145 hectares of mangrove forest for an elevated road from Anand Nagar to Saket, Thane.

[19]Wood Court Co-operative Housing Society v. State of Maharashtra, judgment of the Bombay High Court dated 2 February 2026, upholding the fifty-metre mangrove buffer zone against private residential challenge.

Related:

Cracks in Environmental Jurisprudence: A study of central India’s High Courts

Unending Adjudication: The Vanashakti reversal and environmental finality in India

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