The Punjab Government has cancelled the change of land use (CLU) permission for the proposed cement plant at Deh Kalan village in Sangrur, almost a month after the Supreme Court set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s order related to the project.
The HC had validated an ex-post facto approval given by the Town and Country Planning Department for putting agricultural land to industrial use.
In its order dated March 20, Senior Town Planner, Housing and Urban Development department, Government of Punjab, has withdrawn the CLU permission granted to the project.
Sangrur residents from nearby villages, led by Harbinder Singh Sekhon, a 93-year-old resident of Sangrur, were spearheading a legal challenge against the plant, citing environmental and public health concerns.
The foundation stone of Punjab Cement Plant, a subsidiary of Shree Cement Limited, was laid by then CM Charanjit Singh Channi in 2021.
After the HC rejected their challenge, the villagers approached the apex court in April 2024. They said the proposed factory on 47 acres would adversely affect around 1,800 school students, farmers and a nearby police training centre.
“We are of the view that the CLU dated December 13, 2021, could not have been granted for the proposed unit (cement factory) when, under the operative Master Plan for Sangrur, the site fell in a rural agricultural zone where the proposed activity was not permissible,” a Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta had said in its February 2026 order.
“A CLU which is unlawful on the date of its grant for want of statutory authority does not become lawful merely because a later decision purports to validate it, unless the statute expressly confers such a power of retrospective validation,” it said.
The top court took note of the fact that the revised categorisation and the consequential relaxation of safeguards materially affect the level of protection available to civilians, including residents and school-going children, against exposure to industrial pollution.
“The right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution encompasses the right to a clean and healthy environment. Preventive environmental safeguards are the means by which this right is protected. Where such safeguards are relaxed without a demonstrable and reasoned basis showing that the underlying risk has been materially reduced, the resulting action infringes the substantive content of Article 21,” it said.
