Supreme Court gives Aravalli panel until 30 November, not February

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to give its Aravalli High-Powered Committee six more months. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana told the panel to file its final report on the definition and protection of the hills by 30 November. If it cannot, the court said it will reconstitute the committee. The next hearing is listed for 2 December.

The committee had asked for time until 28 February 2027. Its original deadline was 31 August. In a compliance note that day it said it still needed to assemble spatial, ecological, geological, hydrological, socio-economic and stakeholder evidence. Field visits ran from 6 to 11 August. Public hearings were held in the same window. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati told the bench an interim report already exists, but that more time was needed to hear affected parties properly.

Kant put the February date in personal terms. "They have clearly asked for a date after my retirement," he said. He is due to leave the court on 9 February. "Let the panel work day and night. If they are unable to do that in two months, we will reconstitute the whole panel." Live Law recorded a shorter version of the same warning: if they are not capable, the bench will replace them. No further extension was left on the table.

The court did leave one valve open. The committee may file issue-specific interim reports so that urgent questions do not wait for the full document. It also told the panel it must consult everyone with a stake, including tribal communities in Rajasthan and Gujarat whose land and grazing use would move if the official line of the range moves.

The fight underneath the calendar is a definition. What counts as the Aravalli Hills decides where mining can be licensed, where construction can go, and which ridges around Delhi, Gurugram, Rajasthan and Gujarat fall under protection orders. The court took suo motu notice of the definition row in December 2025 after a formula it had earlier accepted came under attack. The May 25 order that created this committee told it to review the Centre's report on delineation rather than rubber-stamp it.

A change of a few metres in a contour, or a decision to count only hills above a certain height, can open or close entire belts of stone and sand. Builders and mine lessees want a tight definition. Forest officers and residents who have watched ridges flattened for real estate want a wide one. The committee's job is to pick a line that a later bench can defend. That is why its own note used the words comprehensive and defensible. That is also why a six-month slip, running past the present Chief Justice's tenure, landed badly in court.

Thirty November is nine weeks from Monday. The panel has already walked parts of the range. It has an interim text. What it does not have, on its own telling, is a finished consultation with tribal groups and a merged evidence book. Kant's instruction to work day and night is not a metaphor the registry will forget. A reconstituted committee would lose the summer field notes and start again. That threat is the enforcement mechanism.

For Delhi-NCR the Aravallis are not a distant range. They are the last continuous ridge that breaks the dust blowing off Rajasthan. Every season of illegal grading shows up in the city's air and in the groundwater of Gurugram and Faridabad. A late report does not only delay a judgment. It delays a line on a map that planning authorities use while the grading continues.

The bench has now fixed two dates. 30 November for the paper. 2 December for the argument. Between those dates the committee can send partial notes on live disputes. After those dates, if the paper is thin, the court has already said what it will do. It will appoint different people. That is the order from 7 September.