The Bombay High Court’s Nagpur Bench has directed the petitioner to approach the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), observing that the authority is best placed to determine whether the area for Gadchiroli mining project is connected to the Tadoba-Indravati tiger corridor, the Eastern Vidarbha Landscape or Grid No. 259, and whether the project therefore requires wildlife clearance.

The court was hearing the matter on the 937-hectare mining project in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district and its potential impact on tiger movement corridors and wildlife habitat. According to the court order published on Wednesday (August 19, 2026), the petitioner had not made any prior representation to the authorities before filing and said that the petition should be filed through the NTCA, given the organisation’s specialised statutory role.

The court has granted permission for withdrawal of petition and instead approach the NTCA directly with a representation raising the same grievances.

The petition was filed last month by Mumbai based-lawyer and social activist Sagar Kantilal Devre in Mulund (East), Mumbai, with the NTCA, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the State of Maharashtra, and others as responders.

Challenges regulatory approvals

The petition challenges three regulatory approvals comprising the environmental clearance, Stage-II forest clearance, and wildlife clearance exemption granted for diversion of 937.077 hectares of forest land in Gadchiroli district’s villages, including Hedri, Bande, Parsalgondi and Round-Parsalgondi in Etapalli taluk in favour of Lloyds Metals and Energy Ltd., for an iron ore mining project. According to the petitioner, the region falls under the Tadoba-Indravati tiger corridor and that the project was exempted from wildlife clearance without considering the statutory Tiger Conservation Plan, NTCA guidelines, Wildlife Institute of India scientific reports, or the project proponent’s own GPS/KML maps.

The grounds to challenge the approval are violation of Sections 38-O and 38-V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (NTCA’s mandate and statutory Tiger Conservation Plans), failure to conduct GIS-based corridor analysis, radio-telemetry analysis, dispersal route assessment, cumulative impact assessment, arbitrary, unreasoned withdrawal of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest’s legal clarification, and others.

The State government cleared the project proposal diverting 9.4 square kilometres of forest land in Gadchiroli under the tiger corridor for iron ore extraction on May 13, triggering backlash from environmentalists and social activists. A coalition of 20 civil society organisations has already urged the NTCA to rethink the proposal as it has asked the authority to reconsider the Least Cost Path (LCP) model used to map the corridor. LCP is a computer-based method used in mapping the routes that wild animals are likely to take.

Published - August 20, 2026 05:50 pm IST