What happened: Supreme Court restricts post-start “amnesty” via administrative instruction

The Supreme Court quashed a Union government <strong>Office Memorandum (2021)</strong> that had permitted certain projects to obtain environmental clearances after the project work had already begun. The Supreme Court said the Union government cannot change the core environmental scrutiny framework through an administrative instruction rather than through the applicable clearance notification regime.

Key directions and limits issued by the Supreme Court included the following:

- The Supreme Court treated “after-the-fact” clearance based on an executive memorandum as an improper bypass of the clearance process required before commencement of activities. - The Supreme Court held that an “amnesty” approach cannot become a standing “parallel route” that routinely bypasses mandatory prior environmental clearance requirements. - The Supreme Court clarified that the decision was <strong>prospective</strong> (future-oriented), not automatically undoing past actions under the memorandum.

The Supreme Court also clarified an approved route for limited cases:

- Ex post facto (after the fact) environmental clearances may be granted in the future only through a <strong>properly issued amnesty notification</strong>. - The Court said such limited amnesty must be tied to <strong>supervening public interest</strong> and must be limited to “deserving projects.” - The Court barred the Union from using administrative orders or office memoranda as an ongoing workaround to permit clearances after work begins.

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