STRUCTURAL PARADOX

The Supreme Court's intervention in the Aravalli case is not merely another entry in India’s expanding catalogue of environmental litigations.

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It is a critical moment of introspection for a country that often rushes ahead in the name of development but pauses far too late to ask: development for whom, and at what cost? When the Chief Justice speaks of a “structural paradox” created by limiting the Aravalli definition to a narrow 500-metre zone, he is raising more than a technical query. He is challenging the mindset that tries to solve complex ecological realities with convenient administrative drafting. A mountain system cannot be boxed into a neat metric. The Aravallis are not a strip of landscape to be measured with a measuring tape; they are living geological history, a climate regulator, a water conservator, and a shield protecting northern India from the march of the desert. By shrinking their legal identity, the government risks shrinking the very idea of protection, leaving vast vulnerable areas exposed to extractive interests. The Courts insistence that any decision must follow a fair, credible and independent expert exercise is a reminder that environmental governance is not about ticking procedural boxes, but about using knowledge responsibly.Equally significant is the Court’s focus on ecological continuity, which has too often been ignored in policy language. When the bench asks how “gaps” between hill masses should be treated—particularly areas between two hills exceeding 100 metres but separated by roughly 700 metres—it is piercing through a shallow logic that treats empty space as expendable territory. That “gap” is not just land waiting to be exploited; it is