Overview
- The Special Vacation Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, with Justices JK Maheshwari and AG Masih, kept its November 20 order in abeyance and directed a new nine‑member committee to consult stakeholders.
- The court asked the panel to scrutinize whether the 100‑metre elevation and 500‑metre clustering rule creates regulatory gaps that could enable mining in ecologically connected areas excluded by the definition.
- Mandated tasks include verifying claims about how many hills meet the 100‑metre threshold, assessing ecological continuity where gaps exceed 500 metres, and specifying if and where any regulated mining could occur without harming integrity.
- The committee must enumerate areas included and excluded under the proposed criteria and conduct a multi‑temporal analysis of short‑ and long‑term environmental impacts, including on zones no longer covered.
- Context in recent coverage highlights ongoing illegal mining, late‑2025 approvals and regularisations on Aravalli lands, scientific findings of green‑cover loss and disappearing hills, and a parallel Union Aravalli Green Wall restoration drive.