India, Aug. 7 -- The Supreme Court's judgment last month ended the post-facto environmental clearance regime under a 2021 executive order and restated the requirement of prior green clearance for development projects, while leaving intact the Centre's power to create limited exceptions through a legal route.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant affirmed that the country's environmental laws, which lay down prior environmental clearance as the norm, cannot be bypassed by an executive order.

Any such exception, the court noted, can come by way of a notification issued under Section 3 of the Environment Protection Act, 1986.

To understand what the judgment means for future projects, it is worth tracing the histo...