Congress Slams Modi Govt After SC Strikes Down Clearance Rule

New Delhi, May 19, 2025

Congress leader and former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down measures allowing retrospective or ex post facto environmental clearances, calling it a “damning indictment” of the Modi government’s environmental policies.
The Supreme Court’s decision, delivered on Friday, May 16, 2025, held that the right to live in a pollution-free environment is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Court declared the Centre’s 2021 Office Memorandum (OM), which permitted retrospective clearances for projects that had violated environmental norms, as illegal and unconstitutional.
A Bench comprising Justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan ruled that the Union Government has a constitutional obligation to protect the environment, just as individual citizens do. The judgement came in response to a plea filed by the environmental group Vanashakti. In a sharply worded statement, Mr. Ramesh said: “In a landmark decision reaffirming the principles and practices of sustainable development, the Hon’ble Supreme Court struck down the Modi government’s attempt to legalise environmental violations through ex post facto clearances. It declared such clearances both illogical and illegal.”
He further stated that the Court found the 2017 notification—issued during the Modi administration—had been designed solely to shield violators who willfully bypassed the mandatory requirement of prior environmental clearance as stipulated under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
“The Court ruled that the 2017 Notification and the 2021 Office Memorandum violated judicial precedents, encouraged polluters, and legitimised environmental degradation—thereby infringing upon the constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment,” Ramesh added.
The Supreme Court categorically stated that all measures enabling ex post facto environmental clearances must be pre-emptively disallowed. Criticising the Centre’s actions, the 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.”
The Court also condemned the Centre’s approach as deceptive, pointing out that while the term ex post facto was avoided, the provisions in the 2021 OM effectively granted such approvals in violation of law and previous Supreme Court rulings.
Declaring the 2021 OM and related circulars as “arbitrary, illegal, and contrary to the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and the EIA Notification, 2006,” the Court barred the government from issuing any directives to regularise violations or to provide post-facto environmental clearances in any form.
Jairam Ramesh asserted that the judgment exposes the Modi government’s hypocrisy, stating that its “domestic walk on environmental protection is completely at variance with its global talk.”

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