Aravalli beyond a flawed definition

SC ruling undermines the established ecosystem-centric approach and environmental jurisprudence.

Nature is neutral and indifferent to definitions. Over billions of years, millions of species have gone extinct, and new ones have emerged. Human beings are merely a blip in the larger scheme of natural existence. Nature always survives; humanity might not. Yet, the Supreme Court’s recent acceptance of the new definition of the Aravalli Hills reduces a living and historical ecosystem to a matter of definition. While the definition is irrelevant to the Aravalli themselves, it has an irreparable impact on humans and Indian enviro-constitutional jurisprudence.

On the face of it, the Supreme Court’s decision seems modest. The Court accepted an expert committee-recommended uniform definition to put an end to inconsistent definitions of the Aravalli Range across states and consequent illegal mining activities. The new definition includes landforms more than 100 metres above local relief as “Aravalli Hills”, and hills within 500 m of each other are clustered into “ranges”. This excludes a significant portion of the Aravalli landscape from the operational definition, thereby subjecting these areas to ordinary regulatory regimes rather than heightened constitutional protection, even as existing legal mining continues pending further ecological assessment.

The Court, in its judgment, repeatedly acknowledges India’s obligations under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and several landmark judgments on environmental protection through constitutional obligations under Article 21, Article 48A, and Article 51A(g). But the heart of the controversy is not the definition, but the Supreme Court’s shifting of environmental protection from an ecosystem approach to a contour-based one. The Court viewed ecological protection from an administrative, instead of a constitutional, perspective.

The Court cites its precedents, such as the M C Mehta case, where it pioneered environmental protection by reading it into the fundamental right to life. The Court incorporated sustainable development, precautionary principle, and polluter-pays principle in its interpretation of the right to environment, not because the rivers, mountains, and forests met a defined criterion, but because of what they did – sustain life, maintain ecological balance, and secure conditions for dignified human existence.

However, the Aravalli were treated differently: while acknowledged as a continuous geological system in principle, constitutional protection was operationalised through definitional thresholds rather than ecosystem function.

The public trust doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court in M C Mehta v. Kamal Nath rests on the basis that the State is holding natural resources in trust for people, including future generations. Similarly, the Supreme Court in M K Ranjitsinh v. Union of India (2024) dealt with the issue of saving the Great Indian Bustard, a critically endangered bird, from collision with overhead power lines. The Court, while balancing development with environmental protection, recognised the right against the adverse effects of climate change. It has embraced precautionary principles in its earlier judgments, which rest on the logic that when dealing with complex ecological systems, uncertainty caused by human actions calls for restraint and not experimentation.

Even if the Supreme Court’s intervention in the past to protect key ecological hotspots has been episodic, the Court treated environmental protection holistically by applying internationally recognised principles. The Aravalli judgment marks a recalibration of its environmental jurisprudence, shifting emphasis from ecosystem-centric constitutional protection towards administrative regulation. Prioritising administrative categorisations and standardisation over ecological functions and principles articulated by the Supreme Court itself represents doctrinal regression.

Climate and the new vulnerabilities

Climate change is no longer abstract or a future threat; its impacts are experienced locally through rising temperature, declining groundwater levels, and unpredictable weather patterns – the consequences that will follow the degradation of the Aravalli Hills. The lack of a natural barrier against the expansion of the Thar desert would lead to desertification, reduce groundwater recharge, raise local temperatures, adversely impact the carbon sink through the soil system, and reduce forest cover. All this in the already environmentally harsh regions of Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi will make human existence undignified, vulnerable, and fragile.

The Supreme Court need not abandon the expert recommendation but adhere to a robust environmental jurisprudence developed in earlier decisions. While the definition is regulatory and defines the Aravalli for administrative purposes, the constitutional and environmental protection of the Range needs to be governed by principles of public trust doctrine, sustainable development, and the precautionary principle.

To that end, the Court should ensure continued constitutional oversight by requiring transparent compliance reporting and retaining the ability to intervene where statutory or constitutional obligations are diluted. In an era where climate change is a reality, definitional minimalism is harmful.

(Nikhil is an assistant professor at the Alliance School of Law; Rihab is a law student at the institution)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.