The Court docket was listening to the suo motu case it had initiated in regards to the definition and demarcation of the Aravalli vary.
The proceedings stemmed from the Court’s November 20, 2025 judgment, through which a Bench led by then CJI BR Gavai had accepted an knowledgeable committee’s elevation-based definition of the Aravalli Hills and Vary for the aim of regulating mining exercise.
The judgment outlined Aravalli Hills as landforms in Aravalli districts with an elevation of 100 metres or extra from native reduction, and the Aravalli vary as two or extra such hills inside 500 metres of one another.
Whereas the Court docket accepted suggestions prohibiting mining in core or inviolate areas, it declined to impose an entire mining ban, observing that such prohibition might result in unlawful mining and criminalisation.
The definition, nonetheless, sparked widespread protests and criticism, with considerations that it will depart over 90 per cent of the Aravalli area exterior the protecting framework and probably open huge stretches to mining.
In response to the backlash, a Bench led by CJI Surya Kant on December 29, 2025, stayed the November 20 judgment and saved the sooner committee’s suggestions in abeyance.
