Supreme Court on post facto environmental clearances: 2021 MoEFCC OM quashed, 2006 EIA prior EC reaffirmed

Direct fact

On July 29, 2026, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant quashed the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s 2021 Office Memorandum on ex post facto environmental clearances, holding that the 2006 EIA Notification requires prior environmental clearance.

Key specifics

• The 2006 Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification mandates “prior environmental clearance” before construction or operations begin.
• The Centre first introduced post facto clearance through a March 2017 notification as a one-time six-month amnesty window.
• The 2021 Office Memorandum removed any cut-off date, turning the 2017 one-time exercise into a continuing mechanism.
• The Supreme Court said retrospective regularisation must be a “narrow, time-bound, reasoned and supervised window”.
• In 2025, the Union government said projects worth nearly ₹20,000 crore, including a 962-bed AIIMS in Odisha and a greenfield airport at Vijayanagar, Karnataka, could be affected.

Exam lens

Question type: Polity-environment match-the-following, Articles 14 and 21, 2006 EIA Notification, 2017 notification, 2021 OM, and the principle of prior clearance are the key facts. TNPSC may ask which order cannot create a parallel regime for environmental approval.