The Supreme Court on Tuesday constituted a High-Powered Committee (HPC) under Kanchan Devi, Director General, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), to obtain a “fair, impartial and independent” opinion and “resolve critical ambiguities” in the report on the definition of the Aravalli hills submitted last October by a panel headed by the Environment Secretary.
The HPC has been asked to submit its comprehensive report by August 31.
ICFRE is an autonomous council under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and is registered as a society with the MoEF Minister as its President.
Kanchan Devi, a 1991-batch Indian Forest Service officer, reports to the ICFRE Board of Governors headed by the Environment Secretary. The High Powered Committee will review the October 2025 report of the earlier Aravalli panel, which was chaired by the MoEF Secretary.
Other than Kanchan Devi who will be the ex-officio chairperson, the HPC announced on Tuesday has four members — Dr Subhash Ashutosh, former Director General of the Forest Survey of India; Dr Rajendra Kumar Sharma, former Director of the Geological Survey of India; Brij Mohan Singh Rathore, former Joint Secretary in the Environment Ministry; and Prof Ashok K Bhatnagar, former head of the Department of Botany at Delhi University.
The SC also named two special invitees — Prof Jagdish Krishnaswamy of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru, and Prof Laxmikant Sharma of the Central University of Haryana — who will be “associated from time to time by the chairperson” of the HPC.
The Environment Ministry will nominate an officer of the rank of director as The HPC’s member secretary.
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In the past, high powered committees have often been chaired by independent experts like Dr Madhav Gadgil (Western Ghats), Dr Ravi Chopra (Char Dham Project) and Prof MGK Menon (hazardous waste).
“It is customary that a high powered committee is headed by a person senior in stature and expertise to those whose findings are being evaluated,” said eminent conservation zoologist and tiger expert K Ullas Karanth.
Conservationist Bittu Sahgal, who served in multiple government panels, flagged as “bad optics” the choice for the HPC chairperson. “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done,” he said.
But two newly-appointed HPC members The Indian Express spoke said they expected no conflict with the ministry. “We are supposed to take an independent look at the definition issue and not necessarily review the ministry’s report,” said one of them. “The mandate is to evaluate the definition scientifically and good science leaves no room for opinions,” said the other.
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A series of investigations by The Indian Express during November-December 2025 reported that a SC-appointed committee headed by the Environment Secretary ignored the Forest Survey of India’s (FSI) warning that a 100-metre height threshold would exclude nearly 90 per cent of Aravalli hills, overlooked objections raised by the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), and disregarded the SC’s own rejection of the 100-metre benchmark in 2010.
Subsequently, the SC’s amicus curiae in the Aravalli definition case also informed the court in writing that the October 2025 report had “completely suppressed” the views of the FSI while recommending a 100-metre definition for the hills.
On December 29, the SC put the implementation of the Environment Ministry’s October 2025 report on hold and underscored the need for a HPC of domain experts to undertake a comprehensive review.
The apex court further observed that “a fair, impartial, independent expert opinion must be obtained and considered, after associating all requisite stakeholders… to resolve critical ambiguities and to provide definitive guidance” on three key issues:
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* Whether restricting the definition of the Aravalli ranges to areas within 500 metres between two or more hills creates a structural paradox by significantly narrowing the geographical scope of protected territory and facilitating the continuation of unregulated mining and other disruptive activities;
* Whether the Aravalli Hills with an elevation of 100 meters and above, constitute a contiguous ecological formation even when the intervening distance exceeds the prescribed 500-meter threshold, and whether regulated mining would be permissible in these gaps;
* Whether the assertion that only 1,048 of Rajasthan’s 12,081 hills meet the 100-metre elevation threshold — thereby stripping the remaining lower ranges of environmental protection — is factually and scientifically accurate; and
* Whether there exists a significant regulatory lacuna requiring an exhaustive scientific and geological investigation.
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Subsequently, the apex court asked the parties to suggest names of experts for the HPC. At the last hearing on May 25, the government counsel submitted that four names common to the lists proposed by the amicus curiae and the CEC could be included in the committee with the DG, ICFRE as chairperson.
