'Damning indictment of govt': Cong on SC retrospective environmental approvals

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday hailed the Supreme Court decision striking down the measures enabling the grant of expost facto environmental clearances and said it was a lsquodamning indictmentrsquo of the Modi government whose domestic walk is completely at variance with its global talk on environmental protectionThe Supreme Court last Friday said the right to live in a pollution free atmosphere was a part of the fundamental right as it struck down the Centres office memorandum allowing ex post facto or retrospective environmental clearances to projects in violation of normsA bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan made scathing remarks in its judgement delivered on a plea filed by Vanashakti organisation and said The Union Government as much as individual citizens has a constitutional obligation to protect the environmentrdquoFormer environment minister Ramesh hailed the judgement which he claimed was a lsquodamning indictmentrsquo of the Modi governmentIn a landmark decision reaffirming the principles and practices of sustainable development the Honble Supreme Court on May 16 2025 struck down the Modi Governments measures enabling the grant of expost facto environmental clearances It declared such clearances illogical and illegal Ramesh saidThe Supreme Court held that the 2017 notification issued by the Modi government had the sole purpose of shielding violators who knowingly did not secure the mandatory requirement of prior environmental clearance under the Environment Protection Act 1986 he saidIt further ruled that the 2017 Notification and the 2021 Office Memorandum jointly violated binding precedents encouraged polluters and legitimised the degradation of air and water quality blatantly infringing upon the fundamental right to a clean environment guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution Ramesh saidPreemptively disallowing for all measures granting expost facto environmental clearance in any manner the Supreme Court noted it is not possible to understand why the Central Government made efforts to protect those who committed illegality by not obtaining prior EC in terms of the EIA notification he saidRamesh claimed that the judgment is a lsquodamning indictmentrsquo of the Modi government whose domestic walk is lsquocompletely at variancersquo with its global talk as far as environmental protection is concernedThe court said it lsquomust come down very heavilyrsquo on the Centres attempt to do lsquosomething which is completely prohibited under the lawrsquoIt added ldquoCleverly the words ex post facto have not been used but without using those words there is a provision to effectively grant ex post facto EC The 2021 OM has been issued in violation of the decisions of this courtrdquoThe bench therefore declared the 2021 office memorandum OM and related circulars arbitrary illegal and contrary to the Environment Protection Act 1986 and the Environmental Impact Assessment EIA Notification 2006The Centre as a result was restrained from issuing directions for grant of ex post facto clearances in any form or manner or for regularising the acts done in contravention of the EIA notificationThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoeveratOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params