Supreme Court Quashes Centre's 2021 Office Memorandum on Ex Post Facto Environmental Clearances

The Supreme Court of India has quashed the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change's 2021 Office Memorandum (OM) that established a permanent regime for granting retrospective environmental clearances to projects that began without prior approval. A three-judge bench ruled that an administrative order cannot create a perpetual parallel system supplanting the mandate of prior environmental clearance under the 2006 EIA Notification. However, the court did not completely bar ex post facto clearances, allowing them only through a narrow, time-bound, reasoned window for projects of supervening public interest, and requiring any future amnesty to be issued via statutory notification. The ruling came in response to a challenge by environmental group Vanashakti, with the government arguing that striking down the regime would affect public projects worth nearly ₹20,000 crore, including an AIIMS hospital and a greenfield airport.