As SC's Aravalli panel holds dialogue, where's the voice of affected villagers?

Citizens' collective People for Aravallis has told the high-powered committee that feedback from rural communities in the 64 Aravalli districts has been a non-starterDays before a Supreme Court-appointed committee begins a five-day field visit to the Aravallis, an intervenor in the case has told the panel that its public consultation has failed to reach a single rural household that depends on India's oldest mountain range.In a written representation dated August 4, advocate Kriti Bhatia, writing for the citizens’ environmental collective People for Aravallis, told the high-powered committee (HPC) that its July 21 press note “does not capture the essence of public consultation, as envisaged by the Supreme Court”.Even sarpanches and grassroot leaders across the Aravalli districts had not heard that comments were being invited, the letter said. Without feedback from the communities most affected by any decision on the range, “it would not be prudent on the part of the HPC to formulate its report”, it argued.The HPC exists because of a controversy that has run for eight months and counting. On November 20 last year, the Supreme Court accepted a uniform definition of the Aravalli hills recommended by a panel headed by the secretary, ministry of environment, forest and climate change. The definition, for the purpose of regulating mining, treated only landforms rising 100 metres or more above local relief as Aravalli hills. Protests spread across Rajasthan through December. On December 29, a bench led by chief justice of India Surya Kant took suo motu cognisance, stayed its own November judgment and ordered the setting up of a new committee. That panel was constituted by an order dated May 25, 2026, and must report by August 31.Objections to the panel began even before its consultation started. In a joint press note issued on June 19, scientists and conservation groups who wrote to the chief justice of India argued that the body was neither high-powered nor independent.Stalin Dayanand, director of the NGO Vanashakti, pointed out that the chairperson, director general and member secretary of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) ranked below the environment secretary whose report they must now re-examine, and that the environment, forest and climate change ministry controls ICFRE.Environmental scientist Dr Ravi Chopra, who has chaired two earlier Supreme Court committees, wrote that in his experience, serving and retired officials on such panels never voted against the government's position.Geoscientist C.P. Rajendran and policy expert Sagar Dhara asked that the panel be headed by an independent domain specialist rather than an official.That press statement also flagged what it called suppression of a Forest Survey of India (FSI) report dated September 22, 2025, which had stressed that hills under 100 metres act as a barrier against desertification. The FSI put the count of Aravalli districts at 63.The committee headed by the environment secretary and set up under the Supreme Court's May 2024 order listed only 37 districts in its affidavit of October 13, 2025, dropping Chittorgarh, Sawai Madhopur, Bharatpur, Karauli and Bundi among others.The August 4 letter builds on that count, adding Mathura in Uttar Pradesh for the Braj Bhoomi hills, and puts the total at 64 districts across Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Against that, the committee plans to visit 10 districts in three states between August 6 and 10, leaving out Gujarat entirely.On the consultation itself, the representation catalogues failures. The notice appeared only as a Press Information Bureau release, never as an advertisement in Hindi or regional newspapers, and sits five pages deep on the environment, forest and climate change ministry website. It reached no panchayat, tehsil, forest range or hospital noticeboard, and travelled by neither radio nor WhatsApp.Comments must go by email or Google Form, even though only roughly 4 per cent of rural households own a computer, and no postal address was offered. The 21-day window falls in Sawan, amidst the Kanwar yatra, monsoon disruption and the return of migrant mine workers home.The letter invokes the EIA (Environment Impact Assessment) Notification, 2006, which requires oral hearings alongside written submissions; Section 4(4) of the Right to Information (RTI) Act; the Delhi High Court's vernacular publication order in ‘Vikrant Tongad’; and Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. It contrasts the process with the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel's 40 civil society consultations and 14 field visits.The representation’s core demands are a fresh notice, more time, consultations in all 64 Aravalli districts, an extension request to the Supreme Court, and consultation with doctors on the health toll of mining.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsPublished By: Yashwardhan SinghPublished On: Aug 7, 2026 18:39 IST