The Bombay High Court has cleared the removal of 847 mangrove trees in Palghar district to enable essential power infrastructure for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor. A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravindra V Ghuge and Justice Gautam A Ankhad granted the permission as an exceptional measure, emphasizing that the decision must not serve as a precedent for future development projects.
Conditional Clearance for Power Transmission Line
The court approved a petition filed by Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Co. (MahaTransco) to divert 3.35 hectares of forest land, including nearly two hectares of mangroves, for a 132 KV transmission line and substation. Although the court recognized the project as one of national importance, it granted approval only after MahaTransco committed to planting 26,664 mangrove saplings near Thane. That undertaking comes in addition to a statutory plan to plant 7,457 non-mangrove trees across 6.71 hectares in Sangola, located in Solapur district.
Priority Placed on Local Ecosystem Restoration
Addressing the initial mitigation proposal, the bench underscored that compensatory afforestation must focus on local ecological recovery rather than numeric tree counts. Citing Supreme Court precedent from the MC Mehta case, the judges noted that establishing plantations hundreds of kilometers away fails to offset environmental losses at the project site. While distant planting may fulfill statutory statistical metrics, the bench stated that it does not replace the ecological functions lost in the affected locality.
State Directed to Implement Afforestation Reforms
The high court sharply criticized the Maharashtra state government for failing to carry out administrative directives issued in September 2025. Those orders required the state to create afforestation land banks, publish plantation data, and establish formal monitoring mechanisms. Describing the delay as administrative apathy and a continuing default, the bench ordered the Chief Secretary to ensure full implementation within four weeks to prevent afforestation programs from becoming purely theoretical exercises.
Scope of Land Diversion and Environmental Objections
The legal challenge was raised by the Bombay Environmental Action Group, which argued that planting trees in Solapur, approximately 400 kilometers away, could not mitigate the ecological damage in Palghar. The bench chose not to overturn the conclusions of expert bodies, citing the additional binding assurances made by MahaTransco to conduct extensive mangrove planting closer to the impacted site.
