In open letter, ex-bureaucrats warn CJI of ‘bias’ towards development claims

A group of 71 retired civil servants has written an open letter to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, expressing “deep concern” over his recent remarks on environmental litigants, warning that such comments from the country’s highest judicial authority could weaken environmental safeguards, discourage citizen action and influence lower courts.

Issued under the banner of the Constitutional Conduct Group, the 22 May letter responds to remarks made by the CJI during a Supreme Court hearing on an appeal against a National Green Tribunal order that upheld environmental and Coastal Regulation Zone clearances for the expansion of Gujarat’s Pipavav Port project.

During the hearing, while indicating that the court was not inclined to interfere with the NGT ruling, the CJI questioned the stance of environmental campaigners.

“Show us one project in India where environmental activists say we welcome this project, the country is progressing well, we welcome this project,” the letter quotes the CJI as saying.

The signatories — a cross-section of former IAS, IPS, IFS and other retired officers, including former Delhi lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung, former environment secretary Meena Gupta, former diplomat K.P. Fabian, former IPS officer A.S. Dulat and former bureaucrat-activist Harsh Mander — argue that the remarks betray a troubling predisposition against environmental litigation.

“The CJI’s remarks against environmental activists and litigants, suggesting that these activists obstruct ‘development’, reveal a bias and prejudice that is alarming,” the letter says, adding that the judiciary’s constitutional mandate is to approach cases “without pre-conceived notions and decide each case on merits”.

The group says its concern extends beyond the immediate case because oral observations by the CJI are widely reported and can shape institutional attitudes. According to the letter, such statements may influence judicial reasoning, embolden weaker environmental oversight and deter citizens from challenging ecological damage or projects affecting communities and public health.

Rather than merely criticising the remarks, the letter situates environmental litigation within the history of Indian conservation movements. It cites the Silent Valley agitation in Kerala, the Chipko movement in Uttarakhand, the Narmada Bachao Andolan and Karnataka’s Appiko movement as examples of citizen-led resistance to projects seen as ecologically destructive. The signatories argue these movements did not obstruct national interest but advanced constitutional values linked to environmental protection and the right to life.

The letter also invokes the Supreme Court’s own environmental jurisprudence, pointing to landmark interventions in the M.C. Mehta matters, the Ganga pollution case, the Taj Trapezium case, the Delhi vehicular pollution case, the Godavarman forest matters and the recent Ashok Sharma orders. These decisions, it says, established doctrines such as the “polluter pays” principle, the “precautionary principle” and “inter-generational equity”, making the court a crucial forum for environmentally affected communities.

Against that backdrop, the group says the CJI’s remarks are “particularly perplexing” in an era of climate change and environmental disasters, questioning why every project presented by governments as beneficial should be presumed to advance public welfare even if it risks irreversible ecological damage.

A major thread running through the letter is its challenge to the Supreme Court’s apparent confidence in government environmental appraisal mechanisms during the Pipavav proceedings.

The signatories note that the court had appeared to place weight on the fact that the project had already undergone institutional vetting and that no obvious illegality had been found. But they argue that India’s environmental governance system is itself deeply compromised and that even the Supreme Court has acknowledged shortcomings in official expert bodies in earlier matters.

To support this, the letter refers to the recent Aravalli hills litigation, where the Supreme Court initially accepted a Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change expert committee’s definition of the hill range before subsequently setting aside that approach and directing a fresh expert exercise. It also points to the court’s criticism, in 2025, of the Central Empowered Committee over a Rajasthan proposal involving the Sariska Tiger Reserve.

The group then broadens its critique to the institutional architecture of environmental clearances.

It argues that many statutory and expert bodies advising the environment ministry are dominated by serving or retired government officials and lack independent scrutiny. To illustrate this, the letter marshals a series of approval statistics: environment appraisal committees allegedly clear between 95 and 100 per cent of projects across sectors; the Forest Advisory Committee and related bodies approved 98 per cent of diversion proposals involving over 1.73 lakh hectares between 2014 and 2024; and the National Board for Wildlife’s standing committee approved 2,121 of 2,186 proposals considered between 2014 and 2026 — a clearance rate of about 97 per cent.

These figures, the signatories contend, point not to rigorous vetting but to “non-application of mind” and “mere rubber stamping”.

The letter links what it describes as weakened environmental caution to broader consequences, including worsening air and water pollution, forest fires, landslides, floods and extreme heat, arguing that ecological degradation ultimately undermines economic growth itself.

In its concluding appeal, the group urges the Supreme Court not to place “blind faith” in appraisal bodies and not to fault citizens who challenge environmental approvals. It stresses that only a small fraction of environmental, forest and wildlife clearances are ever litigated and describes such litigation as “time-consuming, expensive, and opaque”, but often undertaken in the larger public interest.

“We hope the Hon’ble CJI will encourage rather than discourage citizens from raising their voice for the ecological integrity of our country, and recognise that this is fundamental to our country’s economic security and growth,” the letter says.