‘From city of 1,000 gardens to graveyard of grey’: Jharkhand High Court halts Hazaribagh illegal mining

“The unregulated mining witnessed here is not merely a technical breach of industrial standards; it has become a relentless assault on the essential building blocks of life. The stone dust generated by these units does not remain confined to the pits of extraction; it travels on the wind, a silent and invisible toxin that carries the harmful effects of mining activity even to distant places,” the Jharkhand High Court said on May 7.

Chief Justice M S Sonak and Justice Rajesh Shankar said that forests are receding in Hazaribagh and gardens are being replaced by craters due to illegal mining. (Image enhanced using AI)

Grim picture of Hazaribagh’s ecological decline

• The Hazaribagh district of the state of Jharkhand, a region whose name, derived from the Persian “Hazar” (thousand) and “Bagh” (garden), evokes the historical imagery of a land blessed with a thousand gardens.
• Once an integral part of the Chotanagpur plateau, Hazaribagh served as a natural fortress of dense forests and deep valleys.
• As documented in Captain Robert Smith’s surveys, these indigenous woodlands were meticulously preserved by local rulers, providing sanctuary for the tiger, the leopard, and the bear.
• However, the “soul” of this region has undergone a profound and painful transformation.
• The transition began with colonial-era infrastructure, in which the construction of military roads and railways initiated a systematic clearing of the jungle.

• Early treatises by Walter Hamilton and Bradley Birt trace this recession, noting how vast, impenetrable tracts gradually gave way to human encroachment.
• What was once a pristine expanse of biodiversity is beginning to diminish, eroding the ecological balance that sustained the identity of the “City of a Thousand Gardens“.
• Today, that historical glory stands in stark, distressing contrast to reality. The landscape is ravaged.
• Rampant illegal stone mining, particularly in the Ichak region, has emerged as a pernicious threat.
• The very hills that once formed a sanctuary now stand scarred by unauthorised quarrying operations that operate with impunity.
• The forests are receding, and the gardens are being replaced by craters.

Jharkhand High Court observes

• We must also consider the silent suffering of the flora and the Earth itself. When stone dust settles upon the leaves of the forest, it does not merely coat them; it suffocates them.
• It forces the closure of the plant’s stomata and resists the net assimilation rate, forcing cell and tissue changes that turn a verdant sanctuary into a graveyard of grey.
• The agrarian heartbeat of this region, the pride of our heritage, is being systematically silenced.
  Air, which should be a source of vitality, has become the “worst affected environmental matrix,” acting as a conduit for ecological decay.
• When agricultural productivity drops by as much as sixty per cent and the soil loses its organic soul to high alkalinity and low organic carbon, we are witnessing more than just an economic loss.

• The human cost of this imbalance is perhaps the most heart-wrenching.
• For the families living in the shadow of these crushers, the environment has been transformed from a provider into a threat.
• The air they breathe is heavy with the promise of disease, cardiac distress, airway inflammation, and the terminal shadows of silicosis and tuberculosis.
• It is a profound injustice that the “residents” of this region, especially the working communities who spend long hours in direct contact with emitting fine dust, are forced to trade their health for their hearth.
• Right to a clean environment is part of Article 21.

The Jharakhand High Court referred to Supreme Court precedents on environmental protection and held that the right to a clean and pollution-free environment formed an inseparable part of the fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Citing cases including Subhash Kumar vs State of Bihar, M C Mehta vs Union of India and Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum vs Union of India, the court emphasised that the state was constitutionally obligated to prevent ecological degradation.

The Jharkhand High Court remarked that abandoned mining pits filled with rainwater had become “death traps” for villagers and children due to the absence of fencing and reclamation measures. It took note of material placed on record showing fatal accidents in such pits.

DLSA inspection report revealed ground reality

The Jharkhand High Court noted that although authorities had repeatedly filed affidavits over the years claiming action against illegal mining, an independent inspection conducted by the secretary of the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA), Hazaribagh, revealed a stark mismatch between official claims and conditions on the ground.

Following the DLSA report, the authorities admitted that while six crusher units possessed valid registrations, two units belonging to Sanjay Prasad Mehta and Suresh Prasad Mehta lacked mandatory Consent to Establish permissions from the pollution control board. Show-cause notices were thereafter issued to them in August 2025.

The court also recorded that a complete ban on mining activity had been imposed in Village Tepsa after the inspection report surfaced.

Court rejects eco-sensitive zone claim, imposes restrictions

One of the central arguments advanced by the petitioner was that Village Tepsa fell within an eco-sensitive zone, making all mining activities impermissible under Supreme Court directions in the T N Godavarman case.

However, after examining a 2019 notification issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the high court held that Tepsa was not included in the notified eco-sensitive area list.

The Jharkhand High Court clarified that the absence of eco-sensitive zone status could not become “a licence to engage in ecological destruction”.

The bench reiterated that no mining or stone crusher activity would be permitted within a one-kilometre buffer zone of the Hazaribagh Wildlife Sanctuary and further directed the pollution control board to restrict mining permissions within 500 metres of forests and crusher permissions within 400 metres of forest boundaries.

Failure of enforcement agencies

The Jharkhand High Court criticised the state’s mining, police and pollution control authorities for failing to effectively enforce the law despite having technological tools such as satellite imagery, GIS mapping, GPS tracking and mining surveillance systems.

“Where technology provides the digital ‘eyes’ to see, a continued failure to act can only be interpreted as a deliberate, willful closing of those eyes,” the Jharkhand High Court said.

The Jharkhand High Court noted that authorities had relied largely on registration of FIRs without ensuring prosecutions, confiscation proceedings or recovery of illegally extracted minerals under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957.

It also held the Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board responsible for remaining “completely silent” despite numerous violations and failing to invoke the “Polluter Pays” principle recognised by the Supreme Court.

“These pernicious activities cannot be carried out in complete secrecy. They involve heavy earth-moving machinery. They involve labour. They involve transport on public roads and through public checkpoints. Still, such activities continue unabated,” the Jharkhand High Court said, questioning the conduct of enforcement agencies.

Key directions

Disposing of the PIL after nearly 13 years, the Jharkhand High Court issued an extensive set of binding directions to the state machinery.

• No mining or stone crusher activity shall continue in the affected areas until all permissions and compliance records are verified by the District Level Task Force (DLTF).
• The DLTF must review all environmental clearances, pollution consents, explosive licences and mining permissions within eight weeks.
• Technology-driven surveillance systems, including GPS tracking and CCTV monitoring, must be implemented in the Ichak mining zone.
• A dedicated public helpline and email address must be created within four weeks for complaints relating to illegal mining.
• The district mining officer must initiate proceedings under the MMDR Act against all persons involved in illegal extraction and recover the value of illegally mined minerals.
• The pollution control board must prosecute non-compliant units and impose environmental compensation under the “Polluter Pays” principle.
• Closed and abandoned mines must be reclaimed and secured within eight weeks.
• The court also directed senior district officials to personally file compliance reports within four months and warned that any failure would invite legal consequences.