The Aravalli Mountain Range, or Aravalli are one of the oldest mountain ranges on the planet and has a high ecological and cultural value in the region. Environmentally, it influences the water distribution between Ganga and Indus Basin. One of the ways it influences rivers in the North India is by guiding the monsoon clouds in the season. It also prevents the expansion of desert eastwards. The range also protects the culture of three religious groups in the region – Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, along with several tribal and local communities. Aravalli are also a rich source of several minerals likes Zinc, lead, Silver, Cadmium and Mineral. Due to this they are exposed to exploration and exploitation for commercial purposes and need protection against exploitation that degrading the range. 

The discussion on Aravalli has gained prominence since November 2025. In its order date 20 November 2025, the Supreme Court of India delivered a judgement, through which it accepted the findings on the Committee that was established in 2024 to develop a precise definition of the ‘Aravalli Hills and Ranges’.  According to the Committee and the Supreme Court – “Any landform located in the Aravali districts, having an elevation of 100 metres or more from the local relief, shall be termed as Aravali Hill.”  The definition has another element of a 500-meter area between two or more Aravali hills to be construed part of the range. 

After the decision, the Court received several intervention applications, and requests, asking the Court to give rationales for accepting the “100 metre definition for Aravalli”, as they may have detrimental effect on the protection and restoration of the range. Following this spur, the Supreme Court took a suo moto action, and through its order dated 29 December 2025, delivered an order In Re: Definition of Aravalli Hills and Range and Ancillary Issues, put an interim stop the implementation of the 100 metre definition threshold. In its order, the Court declares that it will provide guidance on the rules, the debates about the geographical narrowing down of the protection of the range, protection of range from mining and other developmental projects. 

Through this symposium, we aim to further the discussion on protection of Aravali range, and debates about the consequences of thinning their protection. With these aims, this piece introduces the symposium, followed by our first analysis by Dr. Kavita and Aadarsh Anand, in their piece titled “Federal Faultlines in Aravalli Protection”. The authors argue that the centralisation of legal frameworks managing the Aravalli Protection has not been the most ideal step. The local governance systems – at the state or municipal level should be empowered to protect the Aravalli, including against the commercial exploitation of the natural resource. They interpret and apply the Constitutional provisions that are central to the relationship between the States and the Union in governing the Forests of India. 

The second piece by Mr. Prakhar Pandey and Sampada Nayak, in their piece titled: “Aravalli as Commons: Lost in Definitions”, investigate the definitional challenges concerning Aravali from the lens of the Commons. While looking at the rationale that justifies Indian Supreme Court’s revisitation of the definition for Aravalli, the authors delve deeper into the usage of categorisation of lands for various purposes and their consequences. They primarily argue that the rich commons like the Aravali are being re-categorised as wastelands or grazing lands, leaving the door for exploration and exploitation of the mountain range open.

The third publication by Ms. Sanya Darakhshan Kishwar, and Mr. Arham Nahar in their piece titled “Justice Delayed, Ecology Denied: Judicial Delay as Environmental Harm in Aravalli Litigation” look at the litigation on Aravali as a temporal issue. They argue that the time taken in environmental cases like that of the Aravalli tends to take away the objective of those cases – in most cases protection of the natural resources. The environmental systems don’t wait and continue to deteriorate while the human systems like the judiciary or the executive wait, and by the time a decision is reached, in this case, as decision of Aravalli, the (in)justice seems to prevail. 

The final co-authored piece by Ms. Gunjan Soni and Adity Sheytte, titled “Whose ‘Trust’ is it? SC’s Aravalli Verdict and the Case for Heightened Judicial Review”, discuss the role of the Supreme Court as the guardian of the Constitution, as well as the Trust of the people of India, by applying the Public Trust Doctrine (PTD) to protect the natural resources in the country. The central argument is that if an executive action aims to exploit the natural resources in a commercial manner and by giving them to private/commercial owners, then the Supreme Court of India must apply the PTD for restitution of the natural resources, and perhaps their ownership. This can prevent mindless developmental planning that may be rather detrimental to overall development in India.