Supreme Court stays 100-metre Aravalli definition, to form new expert panel to resolve critical ambiguities

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These include:

= The number of lower hills to be excluded under the 100-metre definition: The CJI specifically sought confirmation of the fact that only 1,048 — the number of hills reported by The Indian Express citing an internal analyses of the Forest Survey of India (FSI) — out of 12,081 Aravalli Hills which are 20 metres or higher made the 100-metre cut.

Referring to the “widely-publicised criticism asserting that only 1,048 hills out of 12,081 hills in Rajasthan meet the 100-metre elevation threshold, the CJI said: “In the event, this assessment correctly identifies a significant regulatory lacuna, it must be determined whether an exhaustive scientific and geological investigation is necessitated.”

“Such an inquiry would involve precise measurements of all hills and hillocks elevation to facilitate a more nuanced and measured assessment of the criteria required to maintain the structural and ecological integrity of the entire range,” he said.

= Exclusion of areas between hills more than 500-metre apart: This was a prime concern raised by the amicus curiae on the ministry’s definition that counts only hills that are within 500 metres of each other as Aravalli range. This would exclude significant tracts of Aravalli from the protection ring.

The Indian Express reported on December 23 how the SC had accepted the Centre’s 100 m rule for Arravallis, which the SC’s panel had opposed.

The court sought an assessment of areas excluded by the proposed definition — specifically if such exclusion risked their eventual loss or degradation, “thereby compromising the overall ecological integrity of the Aravalli range.”

= Impact of mining and other works in areas excluded from Aravalli: The court sought clarity on how mining or other activities in contiguous areas, which would be excluded from Aravalli, would impact the protected hills.

= Impact of continuing mining in areas demarcated as Aravalli: The court sought an analysis of whether sustainable or regulated mining within the newly-demarcated Aravalli area “notwithstanding regulatory oversight” would result in any adverse ecological consequences for the range.

An aerial view of the Aravalli hills surrounded by dense human settlements in Haryana (Express Photo: Tashi Tobgyal)

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The court also called for a “multi-temporal evaluation” of both short-term and long-term impacts originating from the implementation of the recommended definition and its associated directions.

“We propose to constitute a high-powered expert committee comprising domain experts to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the report submitted by the (previous) committee, This study will constitute an exhaustive and holistic examination of the questions formulated above,” the CJI said.

Environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta welcomed the order: “It vindicates the stand of all concerned that the November 20 judgment on the report of the ministry-led committee, which stipulated 100-metre height for Aravalli, is problematic, ecologically. The fact that the court felt it necessary to constitute a new expert committee to review not only the findings of the earlier committee but also clarify on other issues suggests that the earlier report was prepared in haste. The suo motu cognisance also means that the government’s public response was not convincing.”

The Aravalli Hills and Ranges case

In January 2024, the SC asked its CEC to examine the issue as to whether the classification of Aravalli Hills and Ranges in so far as permitting mining is concerned.”

In March 2024, the CEC recommended that the mapping of the entire Aravalli Hill Range should be undertaken and completed within a period of six months by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) using the 3-degree-slope-based norms it had already used to map the hills in 15 districts of Rajasthan in 2010 under the apex court’s order.

In May 2024, the SC formed a committee under the Environment secretary to come up with a uniform definition of the Aravalli for the four Aravalli states — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi.

On October 13, this committee recommended a 100-metre height definition for Aravalli to the SC. As reported by The Indian Express, the ministry pushed for this definition during the hearing on November 11 even though the FSI, the amicus and the CEC cautioned that the 100-metre height formula would exclude large parts of Aravalli.

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On November 11, the ministry assured the SC that more areas will be counted as Aravalli under the 100-metre formula compared to FSI’s 3-degree definition. On November 20, the SC accepted the 100-metre definition it had rejected in 2010.

Hearing multiple matters related to minings in Rajasthan, the SC had noted on February 19, 2010, that “according to the deemed definition given by the State of Rajasthan, only peaks/ parts of hills that are 100 metres above the ground level are to be treated as Aravalli Hills.”

This was not acceptable to the apex court which asked the FSI to carry an assessment based on satellite imagery in cooperation with the court’s Central Empowered Committee (CEC) and Rajasthan “of the entire hill range (Aravalli) in the State of Rajasthan and it shall not be confined to peaks/ parts of hills above 100 metres, from the ground level.”

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The objections

As reported by The Indian Express on November 27, an internal assessment of its digitised data by the FSI revealed that barely 1,048, or just 8.7%, of 12,081 Aravalli Hills which are 20 metres or higher, spread across 15 districts in Rajasthan, are 100 m or more in height.

While the 20 metre height cut-off is crucial for a hill’s function as a wind barrier, if all 1,18,575 Aravalli hills are considered, over 99 per cent will not make the 100-metre cut, according to the FSI’s internal assessment. The FSI conveyed its concerns to the ministry which decided to go ahead with the 100-metre definition anyway.

Illegal quarries and mining zones are spotted by the KMP Expressway on the Aravalli Hills near Mewat, Haryana. (Express File Photo by Tashi Tobgyal)

A day after the ministry proposed the 100-metre definition in an affidavit on October 13, the CEC wrote to the amicus curiae assisting the bench that they did not examine or approve the recommendation. The CEC also underlined that the definition formulated by the FSI should be “adopted in order to ensure the protection and conservation of the ecology of the Aravalli Hills and its range.”

In his presentation before the SC on November 11, amicus curiae K Parameshwar also pointed out the “integrity of the Aravali as a geographical feature is lost due to this (100-metre) definition”. He cautioned that this “will cause dispersal and the geographical feature of the Aravali is not conserved” and concluded that “the approach suggested by the MoEF&CC is vague and cannot be accepted.”

On November 7, two weeks before the SC accepted the ministry’s 100-metre definition for Aravalli, its CEC relied on the FSI’s formula and the digital maps to recommend denial of renewal or extension of 164 mining leases in Rajasthan.

The concerns

Under the 100-metre definition, proposed by a committee under the Environment Secretary and approved by the Supreme Court on November 20, any landform that is at an elevation of 100 metres or more above the local relief (or local profile) will be considered as part of Aravalli Hills along with its slopes and adjacent land.

But the 100-metre benchmark and the use of local relief — the immediate surroundings of a hill — as the measuring base rather than a standardised baseline such as the state’s lowest elevation would result in exclusion of many 100 metre or higher hills from the Aravalli definition if the surrounding areas (saddles) are of relatively high elevation.

The ministry told the top court that the average slope in 12 of 34 Aravalli districts (across four states) on its list was under 3 degrees, implying that these districts would be excluded from Aravalli if the FSI’s 3-degree slope formula was accepted. It glossed over the fact that most parts of these districts are plains and, taken as a whole, the average slope of such a district would naturally be far lower than the slope of its hilly areas.

Congress leader Pratap Singh Khachiriyavas stages a protest with party workers in Jaipur against the 100-metre rule of the Centre. (Express Photo by Rohit Jain Paras)

Besides, a number of districts have been dropped altogether from the list of 34 Aravalli districts — across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi — submitted by the Environment ministry to the Supreme Court.

For example, Rajasthan’s Sawai Madhopur district, famous for the Ranthambhore tiger reserve located at the convergence of the Aravalli and the Vindhya hill ranges, is not in the list. Also missing is the district of Chhitorgarh, famous for the fort built on a high Aravalli outcrop and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rajasthan’s Nagaur district, where the Forest Survey of India identified 1,110 sq km as Aravalli, is also excluded.

The ministry’s key assurance to the apex court on November 11 that more areas will be counted as Aravalli under the 100-metre formula compared to FSI’s 3-degree definition was also misleading. Because on December 22, Environment minister Bhupender Yadav said at a press conference that the extent of Aravalli areas covered under the 100-metre definition would be known only after the ground demarcation was completed.