The May 2026 cycle in Indian environmental law has produced an operationally consequential cluster — the Supreme Court's Chambal Gharial Sanctuary sand-mining directions on 26 May 2026, the NGT Principal Bench's Sultanpuri illegal tree-felling order, the Jaipur textile CETP operationalisation, the Sijimali bauxite project notice to Vedanta and MoEFCC, the Malbazar hospital bio-medical waste direction, the Waste-to-Energy CPCB compliance report, the pre-monsoon ESZ enforcement pattern, the CAQM 50 mg/Nm³ PM emission standard for Delhi-NCR, the Environmental (Protection) Fund Rules 2026, and the continuing T.N. Godavarman engagement on deemed-forest doctrine. A practitioner's read on the cycle.
On 29 March 2019 a two-judge bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta suspended — not outright quashed — the 28 October 2015 environmental clearance for the Mopa greenfield airport in Goa, and remitted the matter to the Expert Appraisal Committee for re-examination within a month, on a record that disclosed non-disclosure in Form-1 of ecologically sensitive markers, an inadequate cumulative-impact assessment, and faunal markers including the South Asian river dolphin that the EAC's recommendation had not engaged. A practitioner's read on the duty of candour, the EIA rigour standard, and the suspension-for-re-examination remedial template.