"Judicial intervention has often substituted for executive policy-making in India's environmental governance." Discuss with reference to rat-hole mining regulation in Meghalaya.

India's environmental regulation is largely court-driven: the National Green Tribunal, created under the NGT Act, 2010, has repeatedly issued policy-like directions where the executive failed to act [1]. Meghalaya's rat-hole coal mining is the sharpest illustration — a decade after a judicial ban, the State still lacks a mine closure policy.

Courts writing and policing policy

• The NGT banned rat-hole and unscientific coal mining in Meghalaya in 2014, effectively setting mining policy for the State [1].
• The Meghalaya High Court appointed a one-man Justice (retd.) B.P. Katakey Committee as a permanent compliance machinery — a quasi-executive monitoring body.
• Its 39th Interim Report (2026) flags non-adoption of a mine-closure policy, unsealed and unfenced pits, and weak scrutiny of coke oven plants' coal sources [2].
• Even restoration Detailed Project Reports by CMPDIL for pilot sites at Sutnga and Arenggtim await NGT clearance — restoration itself routed through the tribunal [2].

Why the executive vacuum persists

• Sixth Schedule areas vest land and minerals in communities and Autonomous District Councils, sitting awkwardly with the MMDR Act, 1957 [3].
• Coal is a livelihood and revenue mainstay; blanket enforcement is politically costly, so inaction is the path of least resistance.

Limits of judicial substitution

• Courts command but cannot budget, staff or seal pits; tens of thousands of openings remain unclosed despite repeated directions.
• Executive delivery still matters: the Ministry of Coal has enabled regulated, scientific coal mining in Meghalaya [4], and PIB records obligations for maintaining post-excavated areas [5] — outcomes only the executive can scale.

Judicial intervention has therefore been a necessary corrective, not a substitute — it supplies direction while implementation capacity stays with the State. The durable answer is a statutory mine-closure and restoration policy co-designed with District Councils, funded restoration timelines, and independent audit of compliance. Courts should return to review, allowing environmental federalism to rest on Article 48A's mandate rather than continuing mandamus.