The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain a writ petition filed by Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh challenging the grant of ex-post facto environmental clearances (EC).
In November last year, a three-judge Bench had allowed a review petition and recalled its earlier May 2025 judgment in the Vanashakti case, which had restrained the Union government from granting post-facto ECs.
The review judgment had revived the 2017 notification and 2021 Office Memorandum (OM) that permitted such retrospective clearances.
Observing that Ramesh's plea was, in effect, an attempt to seek a review of its earlier judgment, a Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi questioned the maintainability of the petition under Article 32 of the Constitution.
"At the outset, for what purpose has this been filed? You are very well aware that now a three-judge Bench has taken a view," the CJI-led Bench remarked.
When the petitioner's counsel submitted that the present plea challenged the 2017 and 2021 OMs as well as a fresh OM issued in January 2026, the top court sought to know how a writ petition could be maintained against a decision that had already been upheld by the Supreme Court.
"How is this writ maintainable? The government has issued a notification in compliance with a Supreme Court judgment. By challenging it, you are indirectly seeking a review of that judgment. How is it possible?" the bench asked.
It reiterated that if the grievance was against the November 2025 verdict, the appropriate remedy would be to file a review petition and not a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution.
"Why did you not file a review? In a writ petition, how can you seek review of a judgment? If you do so, be ready to face exemplary costs," the bench cautioned, adding: "Have you filed this for media publicity?"
Sensing the top court's disinclination to entertain the matter and its warning of costs, the petitioner's counsel sought permission to withdraw the plea.
The bench allowed the withdrawal and dismissed the petition as withdrawn, granting liberty to avail remedies in accordance with law.
In May 2025, the Supreme Court quashed the 2017 notification and 2021 OM permitting retrospective environmental clearances for projects that had commenced or expanded without prior approvals under the 2006 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification. Subsequently, a review petition was filed by the Confederation of Real Estate Developers of India (CREDAI), contending that the May 2025 ruling caused significant hardship to the real estate sector and interdependent industries.
In November 2025, a three-judge Bench comprising then CJI B.R. Gavai, and Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and K. Vinod Chandran allowed the review petition by a majority, thereby reviving the mechanism for grant of ex-post facto ECs.
Allowing the review, the majority judgment observed that several large-scale public projects, involving investments of around Rs 20,000 crore, would face demolition if retrospective clearances were not restored, and that such demolitions would themselves result in further environmental damage. However, Justice Bhuyan delivered a strong dissent, holding that no ground for review was made out and reiterating that ex-post facto environmental clearances are "alien to environmental jurisprudence".
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