Ex post facto environmental clearance is often seen as legitimising environmental violations. Critically analyse this view with reference to recent Supreme Court rulings.

Ex post facto (post-facto) Environmental Clearance means regularising a project already begun without the prior clearance mandated by the EIA Notification, 2006 [2]. The view that it legitimises violations is substantially valid in principle, but the Supreme Court's Vanashakti rulings show the issue turns on how regularisation is designed, not on a blanket bar.

Merit in the view: it rewards the violator

• Prior EC embodies the precautionary principle — appraisal must precede irreversible damage; clearance after construction reduces appraisal to a formality [2].
• The 2021 Office Memorandum created a continuing administrative route for "violation cases", converting an exception into standing practice [1].
• Struck down by the Court in 2025 as violative of Article 21's right to a pollution-free environment, and quashed again in July 2026 for being a mere executive memorandum, not a statutory notification [1].

Limits of the view: demolition is not always the remedy

• Closure of already-built industrial, infrastructure and housing projects imposes heavy economic and employment costs without restoring the ecology already lost.
• A bounded, one-time scheme — like the 2017 Notification, upheld in 2026 — conditions continuance on damage assessment, remediation and compensation, applying polluter pays rather than pardon [1].

What the 2026 verdict settles

• Prior EC remains mandatory; it can be relaxed only through a statutory notification under Section 3, Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, never by an office memorandum [1][3].
• Fresh violators cannot invoke the closed 2017/2021 windows, leaving a regulatory gap the MoEFCC must fill through a legally robust scheme [1].

Thus the criticism holds against open-ended, executive-made amnesty, but not against a narrow statutory window that extracts restitution. A credible framework — time-bound, non-repeatable, backed by remediation costs, penalties and strengthened monitoring — would reconcile sustainable development with the Article 21 guarantee, ensuring regularisation remains a rare corrective rather than a routine escape route.