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The Supreme Court has constituted a high-powered committee to behaviour an autarkic reappraisal of the Centre’s study connected the explanation and delineation of the Aravalli elevation range and directed the sheet to code what it described arsenic “critical ambiguities” successful the findings.
The committee headed by Kanchan Devi, Director General of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), has been directed to taxable a broad study by August 31, 2026.
The determination comes months aft the apex court, on December 29, stayed the implementation of an October 2025 report prepared by a committee chaired by the Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
The Court had past emphasised the request for an autarkic assemblage of domain experts to undertake a caller technological and ecological assessment.
In its order, the Court observed that a “fair, impartial and autarkic adept opinion” was indispensable aft consulting each applicable stakeholders to supply definitive guidance connected respective contentious issues relating to the extortion of the Aravalli ecosystem.
The recently constituted high-powered committee (HPC) volition beryllium chaired ex-officio by Kanchan Devi, a 1991-batch Indian Forest Service officer, an autonomous instauration functioning nether the Environment Ministry.
The committee’s members see Dr. Subhash Ashutosh, erstwhile Director General of the Forest Survey of India; Dr. Rajendra Kumar Sharma, erstwhile Director of the Geological Survey of India; Brij Mohan Singh Rathore, erstwhile Joint Secretary successful the Environment Ministry; and Prof. Ashok K. Bhatnagar, erstwhile Head of the Department of Botany astatine Delhi University.
The Court besides appointed Professor Jagdish Krishnaswamy of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru, and Prof. Laxmikant Sharma of the Central University of Haryana arsenic peculiar invitees who whitethorn beryllium associated with the committee’s enactment by the chairperson arsenic required.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has been directed to nominate an serviceman of the fertile of Director to service arsenic the committee’s Member Secretary.
The HPC has been tasked with examining respective cardinal questions arising from the October 2025 report.
Among them is whether limiting the explanation of the Aravalli scope to areas located wrong 500 metres betwixt 2 oregon much hills substantially narrows the grade of protected territory and could facilitate continued mining and different environmentally disruptive activities.
The committee volition besides analyse whether the Aravalli hills with elevations of 100 metres and supra represent a continuous ecological enactment adjacent erstwhile separated by distances greater than the projected 500-metre threshold and whether mining activities should beryllium permitted successful specified intervening gaps.
Another contented flagged by the tribunal concerns the report’s assertion that lone 1,048 of Rajasthan’s 12,081 hills fulfill the 100-metre elevation criterion.
The HPC has been asked to find whether this appraisal is scientifically and factually close and whether it would permission a ample fig of lower-elevation elevation formations without biology protection.
The sheet volition further measure whether existing regulatory mechanisms incorporate important gaps that warrant an exhaustive technological and geological probe of the Aravalli system.
The constitution of the HPC follows consultations among parties earlier the court.
During the past proceeding connected May 25, the Centre informed the Bench that 4 experts whose names appeared successful the recommendations submitted by some the amicus curiae and the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) could beryllium included successful the projected panel, with the DG of ICFRE serving arsenic chairperson.
