The Supreme Court has constituted a high-powered expert committee to independently review the Centre’s report on the definition and delineation of the Aravalli hill range. The panel has been tasked with examining and resolving critical ambiguities identified in the report’s findings.
The Supreme Court has constituted a high-powered committee to conduct an independent review of the Centre’s report on the definition and delineation of the Aravalli hill range.
The court has also directed the panel to address what it described as critical ambiguities in the findings.
The committee, headed by Kanchan Devi, Director General of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), has been asked to submit a comprehensive report by August 31, 2026.
This development comes months after the apex court, on December 29, stayed the implementation of an October 2025 report prepared by a committee chaired by the Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). At that time, the court underlined the need for an independent body of domain experts to carry out a fresh scientific and ecological assessment.
In its order, the court observed that a fair, impartial and independent expert opinion was necessary after consulting all relevant stakeholders to provide definitive guidance on several contentious issues concerning the protection of the Aravalli ecosystem.
The newly constituted high-powered committee (HPC) will be chaired ex officio by Kanchan Devi. She is a 1991-batch Indian Forest Service officer and leads an autonomous institution operating under the environment ministry.
The members of the HPC include Dr Subhash Ashutosh, former Director General of the Forest Survey of India; Dr Rajendra Kumar Sharma, former Director of the Geological Survey of India; Brij Mohan Singh Rathore, former Joint Secretary in the Environment Ministry; and Prof Ashok K Bhatnagar, former Head of the Department of Botany at Delhi University.
The court has also appointed Professor Jagdish Krishnaswamy of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru, and Prof Laxmikant Sharma of the Central University of Haryana as special invitees. They may be associated with the committee’s work, as and when required by the chairperson.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has been directed to nominate an officer of the rank of Director to serve as the committee’s Member Secretary.
The HPC has been tasked with examining several key issues arising from the October 2025 report. One of the main questions is whether restricting the definition of the Aravalli range to areas located within 500 metres between two or more hills substantially reduces the extent of protected territory, potentially allowing mining and other environmentally damaging activities to continue.
The committee will also assess whether Aravalli hills with elevations of 100 metres and above form a continuous ecological system, even if they are separated by distances exceeding the proposed 500-metre threshold, and whether mining should be allowed in the gaps between such formations.
Another concern flagged by the court relates to the October 2025 report’s claim that only 1,048 of Rajasthan’s 12,081 hills meet the 100-metre elevation criterion. The HPC has been asked to determine whether this conclusion is scientifically and factually accurate, and whether it would leave a large number of lower-elevation hill formations without environmental protection.
The panel will further evaluate whether existing regulatory mechanisms have significant gaps that justify a detailed scientific and geological study of the Aravalli system.
The constitution of the HPC follows consultations among the parties before the court.
During the last hearing on May 25, the Centre informed the bench that four experts whose names appeared in recommendations submitted by both the amicus curiae and the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) could be included in the proposed panel, with the DG of ICFRE serving as chairperson.