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State of Uttar Pradesh v. Gaurav Kumar

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 650Decided 8 May 2025
C.A. No.-014170 - 2024
Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha · Justice Manoj Misra

Background

The District Magistrate of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh invited e-tenders in February 2023 for mining sand, gravel and boulders from the local riverbed. A resident of Haryana challenged the auction before the National Green Tribunal (NGT), arguing it was illegal because the district's last District Survey Report (DSR), a mandatory environmental study that must exist before mining can be allowed, had expired in 2022, and only an unfinished "draft" DSR existed when the auction notice was issued. The NGT agreed and quashed the auction and the resulting mining permits. The State of U.P. and the companies that had been given mining rights (Letters of Interest) appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the NGT's decision and dismissed all three connected appeals. It held that a valid, finalised District Survey Report is a mandatory precondition for any environmental clearance for sand mining: a draft DSR that has not been formally approved cannot serve as the basis for granting mining rights. Tracing the regulatory history from the Environment Protection Act, 1986 through successive Environmental Impact Assessment notifications (1994, 2006, 2016) and the 2020 sand-mining enforcement guidelines, the Court explained that a DSR must be prepared through a prescribed public process, kept valid for only five years at a time, and finalised before any auction or environmental clearance can proceed. Since Saharanpur's 2023 e-auction was based only on a draft, unapproved DSR, it violated this mandatory framework and was rightly struck down.

Lesson Learnt

Government bodies cannot grant mining rights, including for sand and riverbed minerals, without first completing and formally approving the required environmental survey (DSR): a draft or pending report is not enough, and auctions conducted on that basis can be cancelled by the courts to protect rivers and ecosystems from unregulated mining.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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