New Delhi, June 20 -- With the August 31 deadline for a Supreme Court-appointed high-powered committee to submit a report on the definition of the Aravalli hills looming large, environmentalists and activists have urged the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to constitute a fresh and independent new high-level committee to define the Aravalli hills. In letters from June 16 to 19, with at least 130 signatories from across the country, environmentalists have alleged the latest committee constituted on May 25 was weaker than previous such panels and raised concerns of bias over multiple members directly or indirectly reporting to the Union environment ministry. HT has accessed a copy of the letters sent by the activists. Stalin Dayanand, director of Vanashakti, an NGO dedicated to environmental conservation, in a letter to CJI Surya Kant on June 18, said the new panel did not fulfil the criteria of being a high-powered expert committee nor did it appear to be impartial, a requirement specified by the Supreme Court in an order on December 29, 2025 in the same case. "It is a settled position of law that the entity reviewing any previous decision must be of higher rank and expertise than the earlier body," Dayanand said in his letter. "Both the Chairperson (Director General, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education) and the Member Secretary of the new committee are lower in rank, status and power compared to the earlier MoEF&CC committee and are under the control of the MoEF&CC. The Board of Governors of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) is headed by the Secretary, MOEF&CC and the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the President of ICFRE," he said. To be sure, the deadline for the committee to submit a report on the Aravallis, including how it is defined, is August 31, with the Supreme Court to hear the matter next on September 7. Joseph Hoover, managing trustee of United Conservation Movement, which is working to protect the Western Ghats, in a communique on June 18, said the new committee needed to be completely independent, with no direct or indirect link to the MoEF&CC. "The October 2025, Forest Survey of India (FSI) Report submitted to the Secretary, MoEF&CC had highlighted the importance of lower hills (under 100 metres) as a vital natural barrier against desertification... However, the MoEF&CC led Committee defined the 'Aravalli hills' solely on the basis of height, disregarding FSI's opinion on the importance of lower lying hills..." Hoover's letter read. He said that while FSI's report mentioned 63 Aravalli districts, the MoEFCC-led panel report had mentioned only 37 districts. Ravi Chopra, an environmentalist and the founder-director of the People's Science Institute in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, in a letter on June 19 to the CJI, said that he has served as the chairman of two committees formed on the orders of the Supreme Court. "In the present committee... almost all the members are serving or retired senior officials. I have doubts about their ability to express unbiased opinions," he said....