In Re: Illegal Sand Mining in the National Chambal Sanctuary and Threat to Endangered Aquatic Wildlife v. The State of Rajasthan
Background
The Supreme Court had taken suo motu (on its own motion) notice of rampant illegal sand mining inside the National Chambal Gharial Sanctuary, which was destroying habitat for endangered species like the gharial, and issued notices to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh along with several central authorities, appointing amicus curiae to assist. While the matter was pending, an urgent interlocutory application was filed highlighting fresh violence: two forest guards, Harikesh Gurjar in Madhya Pradesh and Jitendra Singh Shekhawat in Rajasthan, were deliberately run over and killed by vehicles transporting illegally mined sand while trying to stop the mining, months apart, in a clear pattern of organized violence against enforcement personnel.
Decision Breakdown
The Court expressed grave concern over the states' lackadaisical response to the illegal mining and their apparent failure to protect both the environment and their own enforcement officers, holding this failure to be a serious dereliction of the states' constitutional duty to protect the environment as part of the right to life under Article 21. It directed the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh to urgently adopt concrete, effective measures against illegal mining (including invoking preventive detention, seizure and confiscation of machinery and property, and stringent prosecution of offenders) and warned that if effective steps were not taken, the Court would itself step in with extraordinary directions, potentially including deployment of paramilitary or central police forces, a complete ban on sand mining in the affected states, and heavy penalties on the states themselves. The Court disposed of the interlocutory application while directing the states to file compliance affidavits and listed the main matter for further hearing and directions in May 2026.
Lesson Learnt
Courts treat environmental protection, especially of protected wildlife habitats, as a constitutional obligation tied to the right to life, not merely a regulatory matter, and when state governments fail to curb organized illegal mining that turns violent (including against their own enforcement officers), the judiciary can and will threaten drastic remedies like troop deployment or outright bans to compel state action.