This order does not decide the legality of any individual closure order or mining lease, and it does not permit any closed industrial unit to resume operations. The merits of Bherawa Textile's challenge to its closure order remain for the National Green Tribunal, and the wider river-restoration proceedings are listed again on 27 November 2026 as part-heard.
- Case
- In Re: 2 Million Lives at Risk, Contamination in Jojari River, Rajasthan
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decision
- Citation
- 2026 INSC 1203
- Bench
- Vikram Nath; Sandeep Mehta
- Case numbers
- SMW(C) 8/2025; C.A. 5517-5519/2022; C.A. 8748/2022; C.A. 9057-9058/2022; C.A. 9010-9011/2022
- Outcome
- Order dated 26 October 2026 in SMW(C) 8/2025 issuing directions A to H on river protection and illegal mining, and disposing of I.A. Nos. 324760 and 324761 with liberty to approach the National Green Tribunal; the suo motu proceedings continue.
The decision
The Supreme Court has ordered a Special Investigation Team probe into organised illegal bajri mining in the Jojari, Bandi and Luni river system in Rajasthan, and barred the State from permitting any new industrial unit near the three rivers until their flood lines and buffer zones are scientifically fixed. Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta passed the order on 26 October 2026 in the Court's continuing suo motu proceedings on the contamination of the river system, a case concerning two million lives at risk.
The SIT must be constituted within three days, headed by an officer of at least Inspector General rank and including the Superintendents of Police of Jodhpur, Balotra and Pali. The Court also gave Bherawa Textile Industries Pvt. Ltd. liberty to ask the National Green Tribunal to restore its appeal against the closure of its unit. The matters are listed again on 27 November 2026 as part-heard.
Background
The proceedings began as a suo motu writ petition on the continuing degradation of the Jojari-Bandi-Luni river ecosystem. By an order dated 29 September 2026, the Court had noted continuing pollution, deficient pollution-control infrastructure and gaps in enforcement, and had directed remedial steps and a Comprehensive Resolution Plan with specific timelines and measurable milestones.
Before the Court were a Note from the High-Level Ecosystem Oversight Committee and a compliance affidavit from the State. The Committee warned that the Water Resources Department was proposing to redetermine the rivers' edges and widths from estimated sewage and treated wastewater flow. At Bhituja on the Luni, the recorded width is about 1,172 metres, and at Ajit about 794 metres; reducing those stretches to about eight metres would reduce the river to a narrow sewage channel.
The Committee also flagged indiscriminate bajri mining, including five contiguous plots at Village Kanana in Balotra district spanning 458.6 hectares and about 8.1 kilometres of riverbed, inadequate progress on effluent treatment and Zero Liquid Discharge facilities in the Jodhpur, Pali and Balotra clusters, and serious groundwater depletion in the Balotra block, a Dark Zone since the 1990s.
The issue
Two questions came before the Court: what protection the river corridors should receive while the restoration proceedings continue, and whether the rivers' recorded boundaries could be redrawn by reference to sewage flow. The second arose from the applications by Bherawa Textile Industries: whether the Court's earlier orders of 18 March and 29 May 2026, which directed enforcement action against polluting units and barred closed units from resuming operations without the Court's leave, extinguished the National Green Tribunal's statutory appellate jurisdiction to examine the legality of an independent closure order passed by the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board.
Bherawa's Consent to Operate, valid until 31 January 2030, had been revoked by the Board on 18 August 2026 and its unit directed to close. It had appealed to the Tribunal under Section 16(c) of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, but withdrew the appeal on 5 October 2026 without a decision on the merits, after the Tribunal directed that the proceedings would be governed by this Court's orders.
The rule
The Court held that its directions cannot be read as excluding the Tribunal's appellate jurisdiction under the National Green Tribunal Act to examine the legality of an independent regulatory order. Challenging the legality of such an order is distinct from seeking permission to resume operations, and the Tribunal's exercise of appellate jurisdiction would not dilute the Court's binding directions or entitle a unit to resume operations contrary to them.
On the rivers themselves, the Court proceeded on the recorded boundaries. The Additional Solicitor General fairly submitted that the Water Resources Department's exercise was misconceived, and that the State would refrain from permitting new industries until the High Flood Line and buffer zones are lawfully determined from departmental records.
The reasoning
The Court found the State's compliance affidavit wanting. It reported steps such as district-level vigilance teams and enforcement action, but many of the initiatives contemplated under the Court's directions were still under consideration. Starting administrative processes, the Court said, cannot by itself count as fulfilment; what is required is effective implementation on the ground, within definite timelines and under clearly identified responsibility.
The Court was particularly concerned by the Mines and Geology Department's position on illegal gravel mining: where illegal mining had been detected, leases had subsequently been granted under the prescribed procedure and operations were now said to be regulated and sustainable. The Court held that a later lease grant does not by itself answer whether the grant is environmentally sustainable, and that accepting the explanation without scrutiny would risk reducing illegal mining to post-facto regularisation. It deprecated the apparent attempt to legitimise illegal mining by subsequently granting leases.
The Court also recorded Digvijay Singh Jasol's concerns, raised in person, about groundwater depletion in the Balotra block, about 135 Effluent Treatment Plant units there of which only a handful met Zero Liquid Discharge norms, and the proposed textile park at Newai, about 30 kilometres from Balotra. It directed the State to file a separate affidavit addressing his Note, and ordered the Central Ground Water Authority to be impleaded to report on groundwater in Jodhpur, Balotra and Pali.
What happens next
The Court issued eight directions. The State must not permit any new industrial unit near the riverine ecosystem until the High Flood Line and buffer zones are scientifically determined, and must maintain a protective zone of 100 metres on either side of the rivers' recorded outer boundaries, with no red-category industry within 500 metres. The SIT must investigate organised illegal bajri mining, the networks through which extraction, transportation and sale are organised, the beneficiaries, and the role of any public officials, and file a status report before the next hearing. The State must also formulate a policy for financial assistance to units establishing Zero Liquid Discharge plants, and prepare a time-bound plan for a conveyance network to carry and reuse treated wastewater and RO permeate.
The Court appointed Balbir Singh, senior counsel, assisted by Namit Saxena, advocate-on-record, as amici curiae, and directed a copy of the order to Justice Sangeet Lodha (retired) of the Rajasthan High Court. On Bherawa's applications, the Court gave the company liberty to seek restoration of Appeal No. 14 of 2026 (Central Zone) before the Tribunal, which must decide it on its own merits. The matters are listed again on 27 November 2026 as part-heard.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students
This order shows the difference between challenging the legality of an order and asking for permission to act in defiance of it. Bherawa did not ask the Court to let its unit reopen; it asked only whether the Tribunal could hear its challenge to the closure order at all. The Court's answer keeps two tracks separate: the Tribunal decides whether the Board's order was lawful, while the bar on resumption stays until the Court grants leave.
The order also shows a continuing mandamus in operation. The Court is supervising restoration through a committee, compliance affidavits, a SIT, the groundwater authority and amici curiae, with the next hearing fixed. Notice how the Court treats the State's compliance affidavit: reporting numbers of cases detected or leases granted does not discharge the obligation. The test is whether the measures can prevent further degradation and secure restoration — an outcome test, not a paperwork test.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why did the Court hold that its earlier directions against resuming operations do not prevent the National Green Tribunal from examining the legality of a closure order?
- What did the High-Level Ecosystem Oversight Committee warn would happen if the widths of the Luni, Jojari and Bandi rivers were redetermined on the basis of sewage flow?
- What are the three time-bound steps the Court directed on illegal bajri mining, and who must carry each of them out?
