🗞️ Why in News The Supreme Court stayed its November 2025 order which defined the Aravallis strictly as landforms with a minimum elevation of 100 metres above local relief.

The Disputed Definition

  • SC had accepted: minimum 100m elevation above local relief; range requires 2+ hills within 500m
  • Origin: MoEFCC committee adopted Richard Murphy’s 1968 academic landform classification to draft a Management Plan for Sustainable Mining (MPSM)
  • This deliberately ignored the Forest Survey of India (FSI) standard of >3-degree slope

Why This Definition is Dangerous

Legal Exclusion:

  • Only 1,048 of 12,081 hills in Rajasthan are above 100m (9%)
  • Over 90% of terrain — degraded forests, scrublands, gair mumkin pahar (uncultivable hills) — would lose legal protection
  • Haryana forest cover (3.6%) would further shrink
  • 2018 CEC report: 25% of Rajasthan Aravallis lost to illegal mining since 1967-68
  • Forest cover loss: 5,772.7 sq km (32% reduction)

Geological Hazards:

  • Heavy mining alters Crustal Reflectivity Variation (CRV) — dictates how seismic waves travel
  • Deep excavations can trigger Reservoir-Induced Seismicity or amplify shockwaves from distant Hindu Kush earthquakes, endangering Delhi-NCR

Hydrological Crisis:

  • Fractured rocks of lower ridges are critical recharge zones for Rajasthan’s groundwater “dark zones”
  • Destruction guarantees desertification

Mining Interests

  • MoEFCC identified critical minerals (lithium, nickel, graphite, REEs) in Aravalli-Delhi belt
  • Recommended limited mining for “strategic and atomic minerals”
  • Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023 loophole: Allows diversion of ecologically sensitive forests for mining if 3 parts degraded land exchanged for 1 part lush forest — facilitates destruction under guise of energy transition

Ecological Significance

  • Aravallis act as barrier against Thar Desert eastward expansion through 12 identified sand gaps
  • Critical stopover for migratory birds (Common Cuckoo uses Jhalana as energy replenishment point)
  • Supports unique desert-adapted fauna: royal snake, desert monitor lizard, Asiatic wildcat, white-footed fox

Way Forward

  • Treat Aravallis as an indivisible 10,000 sq km ecological mosaic — not isolated peaks
  • SC must enforce earlier rulings (Ashok Sharma case) mandating identification, demarcation, and GIS-mapping of all forests, wildlife corridors, and eco-sensitive zones before any mining policy

UPSC Angle

  • GS1: Physical geography (Aravalli fold belt, geomorphology, seismicity)
  • GS2: Judiciary, environmental governance, Centre-State conflict
  • GS3: Environment, mining vs conservation, critical minerals policy