The Supreme Court held that a retrospective environmental clearance is alien to environmental jurisprudence and an anathema to the EIA Notification, 1994, striking down a 2002 circular that permitted post-facto clearances. Balancing equities, it declined to order closure but upheld a restitutionary penalty of Rs 10 crore on each erring unit.
The National Green Tribunal disposed of a challenge to the Asharam Tiraha–Ratnagiri Tiraha (Ayodhya Bypass) six-laning in Bhopal, permitting felling of 7,871 trees — reduced from 9,888 after design changes — subject to compensatory afforestation at 10:1, native-species-only planting, 15-year monitoring by a technical committee, and air-quality monitoring. The order is a textbook application of the development-versus-environment balance.