India’s Supreme Court on Thursday refused to block coal mining operations in Madhya Pradesh’s Singrauli district, allowing Mahan Energen Limited, a subsidiary of Adani Power, to proceed with a project that activists say will destroy an elephant corridor and fell more than 600,000 trees.
The court declined to examine the environmental clearances on merit. Instead, it upheld the National Green Tribunal’s finding that the legal challenge arrived too late.
The Project
The Union Environment Ministry granted Stage-II forest clearance in May 2025, approving the diversion of 1,397 hectares of forest land in Singrauli for the Dhirauli coal block, allocated to Mahan Energen. The Madhya Pradesh government also cleared the project.
Activists say the site lies within a no-go zone designated in 2011 due to its high forest density, and within an elephant corridor spanning Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand.
Environmental activist Ajay Dubey challenged the approvals before the NGT. The tribunal dismissed his petition in April 2026, citing a 259-day delay. Under Section 16 of the NGT Act 2010, challenges must be filed within 30 days, extendable by 60 days on sufficient cause. The tribunal held it had no power to condone delays beyond 90 days.
The NGT ruled that the limitation clock began when the ministry uploaded the clearance to its website — a reading Dubey disputed before the Supreme Court.
The Hearing
A bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe heard the appeal Thursday and went straight for the delay. “Why so much delay? The original application by you was filed before the NGT on January 22,” the bench said.
Advocate Siddharth Gupta, appearing for Dubey, urged the court to invoke Article 142 of the Constitution — its extraordinary jurisdiction — arguing that procedural barriers should not shield approvals from scrutiny when environmental stakes were this high.
Gupta contended that posting the clearance online did not constitute valid public notice, and that local residents only learned of large-scale tree felling in December 2025. Mahan Energen opposed the plea, defending the NGT’s position on limitation.
The court dismissed the appeal without touching the merits of the clearances. It left the door open for Dubey to pursue other legal remedies.
Political Fallout
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh raised the alarm on Saturday. “This area spans approximately 7,000 acres and was considered part of the ‘No-Go’ zone designated for mining due to the richness of forests and the presence of elephant corridors in 2011. Under this project, more than 600,000 trees will be felled,” Ramesh wrote on X.
He expressed hope that the High Court — and ultimately the Supreme Court — would take up the matter “with the same sensitivity, rigorous scrutiny, and urgency that it demands,” pointing to the court’s recent intervention in the Aravalli deforestation case as a benchmark.
The order does not end the legal fight. Dubey retains the right to approach a High Court. Whether any court will examine the clearances on merit before the trees fall is now the central question.
The Dhirauli coal block sits in a forest the government once protected. The May 2025 approvals opened it to mining. Two courts have now declined to look inside.
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