Shafaqna India: The Supreme Court has constituted a five-member High-Powered Committee (HPC) headed by Director General of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) Kanchan Devi to define the Aravalli Hills and Ranges.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi ordered that the HPC will be headed ex officio by the ICFRE Director General.
Kanchan Devi, a 1991 Indian Forest Service officer from the Madhya Pradesh cadre, has over three decades of experience in forestry education and research, wildlife and forest policy, and institutional leadership.
The other members of the HPC included former Director General of the Forest Survey of India Dr Subhash Ashutosh, former Director of the Geological Survey of India Dr Rajendra Kumar Sharma, former Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) Brij Mohan Singh Rathore, and former Head of the Department of Botany at Delhi University Prof Ashok K Bhatnagar.
The top court ordered that Prof Jagdish Krishnaswamy of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and Prof Laxmikant Sharma of the Central University of Haryana shall be associated with the HPC as special invitees from time to time and officer of the rank of Director in the MoEFCC will serve as Member Secretary.
“Further, the High-Powered Committee so constituted shall be at liberty to associate any other domain expert(s) as may be required for the effective discharge of its functions,” the Bench said in its May 25 order made public on Wednesday.
Noting that it’s essential for the HPC to remain mindful of “varied and often competing considerations” while undertaking its assessment to ensure a comprehensive, balanced, and informed evaluation of the issues falling within its remit.
“Accordingly, we direct the High-Powered Committee to actively invite and consider suggestions from all relevant stakeholders. For this purpose, the Committee shall issue an appropriate public notice inviting representations, suggestions, and inputs from interested persons and entities who may be affected by, or have a legitimate interest in, the issues under consideration,” it ordered.
The HPC is mandated to conduct a “fair, impartial, independent” review of the Centre’s report on the definition and delineation of the Aravalli hill range addressing the “critical ambiguities” in the findings and submit a report by August 31, 2026.
The top court had in November 2025 approved an elevation-linked definition for classifying landforms as part of the Aravalli range — spanning across Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat — for the purpose of mining regulation.
However, noting that certain clarifications were needed regarding the definition of Aravalli Hills it had earlier approved, the Supreme Court had on December 29, 2025 ordered to keep in abeyance its November 20, 2025 ruling that was based on a committee’s recommendations.
It had decided to set up a new HPC of domain experts to examine the environmental impact of the recommendations made by the earlier committee following public outcry over the definition of Aravalli Hills and Ranges.
Taking note of “a significant outcry among environmentalists” about ecological degradation due to unregulated mining in the Aravali Hills, the top court had said that there was a need to resolve “critical ambiguities”, including whether the criteria of 100-metre elevation and the 500-metre gap between hills would strip a significant portion of the range of environmental protection.
“It is important, and indeed imperative, that the proposed Committee comprise experts possessing diverse and 8 multidisciplinary expertise across a broad spectrum of relevant fields. Such a composition is essential to ensure that every aspect bearing upon the issue is comprehensively examined, including, inter alia, the geological and soil characteristics of the region, its biodiversity, flora and fauna, mineral wealth and natural resources, as well as the scientific and accurate geo-mapping of the Aravalli Hills and Ranges,” it noted.
“A holistic assessment of these interconnected factors is thus indispensable for arriving at an informed and balanced determination. Above all, such an exercise is necessary to ensure that any decision ultimately taken does not inadvertently occasion further degradation of the Aravalli ecosystem and that appropriate measures are devised to safeguard these ancient mountain ranges and the ecological systems that they sustain,” the top court said, giving liberty to the HPC “to expand the scope of its assessment” to take up additional issues or factors bearing upon the subject matter of its mandate.
