Bengaluru: Hearing the issue regarding the controversial new definition of the Aravallis today (January 21), the Supreme Court said that the stay on the new definition — as specified by its order on December 29 — will continue.A three-member bench comprising the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant heard the matter.The court said that certain clarifications regarding the new definition were still required for it to take a call. The CJI said that the amicus curiae to the court, K. Parameshwar, should prepare a “comprehensive” note on the issue of defining the Aravallis.“We have also asked for names to be suggested of eminent environmentalists, forest experts etc, so that an expert body can be formed to look into all aspects and assist the court. Such a committee shall work under direct control and supervision of this court,” BarAndBench quoted the CJI as saying. The court ordered Parameshwar to file his detailed report on the definition for the Aravallis in four weeks. However, the bench also said that it would not entertain any new petitions on this matter regarding the Aravallis, as this “distracts” from the proceedings.The CJI also reiterated the Court’s earlier stand on taking strict action against illegal mining which is present in the Aravallis. Calling illegal mining a “crime”, the CJI said that it “can lead to irreversible steps and illicit mining has to be stopped”.Forests versus Aravallis?According to a live blog by India Today, the bench also said on January 21 that the question of defining forests and Aravallis would be examined separately. The court said the two issues raise distinct concerns and would require independent consideration. However this is contrary to the Court’s own order in 1996, often called the Godavarman order, which clearly said that forests — in functionality and not just dictionary meaning — should be protected even if they are not classified as forests officially. “The Godavarman order of 1996 had directed identification of forest lands as per government records and dictionary meaning, irrespective of ownership. These forests included notified forests; unclassed forests; deemed forests; Sec 4 & 5 notified Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), 1900, lands in Haryana and Rajasthan; and “gair mumkin pahar” in Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat, which occur in the Aravallis. “Gair mumkin pahar” refers to land classified in Indian revenue records, particularly in Haryana and Rajasthan, as uncultivable hills or mountains unsuitable for agriculture due to rocky, steep terrain and identified as forests. The Godavarman order also included identification of all degraded forests which are aplenty in the Aravallis,” according to former principal chief conservator of forests of Kerala, Prakriti Srivastava.The former officer of the Indian Forest Service had written in Down To Earth on January 16 that the court was “enabling the violation of its own orders as well as forest laws”.“It is untenable that Aravallis can be defined on the basis of height forgetting that its forests, Section 4 & 5 notified PLPA lands and “gair mumkin pahars” are to be identified and protected first. If an exercise defining Aravallis by a height of 100-plus meter is undertaken, our forests in the Aravallis will be subsumed by this definition and will be on the block for mining rather than identified, demarcated, protected and regenerated,” she had commented.What the last SC order said On December 29, the Supreme Court had stayed its previous order (dated November 20) that accepted a uniform definition for the Aravalli hills – a definition that was recommended to the court by the union environment ministry. However, environmentalists and scientists had pointed out that this new definition – which specified that only hills above 100 meters above the local terrain would qualify as the Aravallis, among others – could open up vast tracts of the area to mining. Large citizen protests ensued, particularly in Rajasthan, a state that is home to most of the Aravallis.Taking suo motu cognisance of the protests, the court placed its order (accepting the new definition, and dated November 20) in abeyance on December 29. In this order, the court directed that a new committee be formed to study and survey the Aravalli hill range, citing concerns that the new definition that its previous order accepted could be “misconstrued” to facilitate mining in areas that are not classified as the Aravallis. The court had also said that no action be taken regarding the Aravallis until it had heard the matter again on January 21.The court had said that prior to implementation, a fair, impartial and independent expert opinion must be considered to provide definitive guidance, per the news report. There was a need to examine whether the definition of the Aravalli Hills and Ranges had created a ‘structural paradox’, and whether it had inversely broadened the scope of non-Aravalli areas, thereby facilitating the continuation of unregulated mining.As per LiveLaw, the bench also said that some other aspects needed deeper examination – such as whether regulated mining would be permitted in the 500-metre gaps between hills, and if so, what precise structural parameters would be used to ensure that ecological continuity was not compromised. The court said it must be determined whether the concern that only 1,048 hills out of 12,081 meet the 100-metre elevation threshold was factually and scientifically correct, and whether a geological enquiry was necessary, the report said.The CJI said that a detailed identification of areas now in the ‘non-Aravalli’ range would have to be done, according to The Hindu. The apex court had also said that a new high-powered expert committee be constituted to examine all these concerns.