The public record includes two stone-crusher cases near Rajaji Tiger Reserve. They concern different units, different companies, different proceedings, different questions and different dates. One is a unit that a High Court ordered stopped in January 2023 after holding that prior wildlife clearance was required for operation in the eco-sensitive zone. The other is the subject of an NGT case concerning a proposed unit described in the 2024 record as being set up; the tribunal has made no decision on the merits. This page reads the documents as documents. It reports what each one says about distance, clearance and status, keeps three separate proceedings separate, and decides nothing. Nothing here is legal advice, and nothing here states that any unit stands inside the park.
Sources used, all checked on 24 October 2026: the Uttarakhand High Court at Nainital, Writ Petition (PIL) No. 168 of 2019, judgment of 2 January 2023; the National Green Tribunal orders in Original Application No. 772 of 2022 of 19 February 2024 and 6 October 2026; the National Green Tribunal orders in Original Application No. 780 of 2024 of 12 July 2024, 22 August 2024, 17 July 2026 and 3 September 2026; and Nikhil Ghanekar, The Indian Express, 22 August 2024, reporting a Wildlife Institute of India report dated 16 August 2024. For the eco-sensitive zone framing around this reserve, our riverbed mining explainer already carries the draft 2018 notification, the default 10 km expression used in official papers and the April 2023 Supreme Court directions, and it is linked there rather than repeated here.
Unit one: M/s Shri Sidhbali Stones, and what the High Court was told
The first proceeding is Writ Petition (PIL) No. 168 of 2019, filed by a resident of Dalipur village near Kotdwar about pollution caused by the running of a stone crusher unit, and decided by the Chief Justice and one other judge on 2 January 2023 after hearing on 30 August 2022. The company at the centre of it is named in the judgment as M/s Shri Sidhbali Stones, the respondent operating the unit, and the record around it is long: counter affidavits, a pollution board position, a mining department affidavit, a Conservator of Forests report and several interim orders asking for the same distance to be measured in the same way.
What the state machinery told the court changed shape over time, and the court noticed. The unit operators said in their counter affidavit that the plant was about 13 km from the core zone of Rajaji National Park by road and 6.4 km as the crow flies. An affidavit of the Principal Secretary in March 2020 repeated the same two figures. The District Magistrate affidavit of 2 November 2019 described a non-perennial stream, the Sigaddi, at about 120 m with a width of 41 m, so that forest land on the far side begins at about 161 m, and described the buffer zone boundary as starting on the far side of that stream. In an order of 31 October 2021 the court recorded what it called an utter confusion with regard to the distance between the boundary of the park and the unit: a map filed by the petitioner showed 3.39 km, the Conservator affidavit gave 6.4 km aerial from the park and 161 m from the buffer area of the tiger reserve, and neither aerial distance nor linear distance nor buffer area had been defined. It directed the present Conservator of Forests to go and measure the physical distance from the outer boundary of the park.
The two numbers that never reconcile
The reply on record answered the court’s third query about distance from the park boundary itself with a single line: the aerial distance of the stone crusher from the boundary of Rajaji National Park is 6.4 km. The report of the Conservator of Forests dated 11 March 2020, quoted again in the judgment, gives both figures together, an aerial distance from the park of 6.4 km and a linear distance from the outermost boundary of the unit to the buffer area of Rajaji Tiger Reserve of about 161 m, with about 120 m to the Sigaddi stream. Aerial distance was defined in the reply as the shortest distance between two points measured using ArcGIS on a Survey of India toposheet, and linear distance as the shortest horizontal distance measured along the ground with a measuring tape.
Then the operative part of the judgment moves one of those numbers. In paragraph 97, in the passage on which the finding rests, the court observes that the unit is admittedly located at a distance of only 161 meters from the boundary of the Rajaji National Park, and treats that as placing it inside the one kilometre eco-sensitive zone applied by the Supreme Court in the T.N. Godavarman matter. The Conservator report quoted two paragraphs earlier says the 161 m is from the buffer area of the tiger reserve, while the distance from the park boundary is 6.4 km aerial. Both sentences are in the same document. This article does not choose between them, does not harmonise them, and does not state that the unit was inside the park: it reports that the distance figures printed in the record are mutually inconsistent and that the inconsistency is unresolved on the face of the judgment.
What the judgment actually ordered
Paragraph 99 is short and it is the operative direction. The court allowed the petition and directed the two respondents to stop the operation of the stone crusher forthwith. It directed them to apply to the National Board for Wildlife to obtain clearance for running the plant, directed that board to examine the case threadbare including the aspects taken note of in paragraph 97, and directed it to decide by a speaking order within three months of the judgment. If the board granted approval, the unit could resume. If it refused, the respondents had to dismantle the plant and remove all equipment and machinery from site within two months of the order being passed by the board. A separate direction in the same judgment requires the State Pollution Control Board to be present for every inspection of a polluting project, and states that inspection reports prepared without its participation shall be illegal and cannot found a permission to set up or operate such a plant. The judgment also declined to go into disputed questions of fact about wall height, storage height, green cover and noise compliance.
Nothing read for this article records what the National Board for Wildlife has since decided about that unit. The judgment set a three-month clock for a decision in January 2023; the sources checked on 24 October 2026 contain no such decision, so this page reports none and asserts no current status.
Unit two: the proposed M/s Balaji Associates unit
The second proceeding is Original Application No. 780 of 2024 before the principal bench of the National Green Tribunal. The order of 12 July 2024 records what the applicant is questioning: the permission for, and the setting up of, the stone crusher of M/s Balaji Associates, described in the order as Respondent No. 10. The complaints recorded are three: that the unit is being set up in the eco-sensitive zone of Rajaji Tiger Reserve, that clearance from the National Board for Wildlife was necessary and had not been obtained, and that the unit is in an elephant corridor. That order quotes condition 78 of the environmental clearance dated 1 February 2024, which reads that the clearance is subject to obtaining clearance under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 from the competent authority as may be applicable to the project, and it quotes the 2011 ministry guidelines requiring prior clearance from the standing committee of the board for projects in an eco-sensitive zone or within 10 km in the absence of a delineated zone.
Two communications are placed on record in that order. One, dated 18 March 2024 from an Additional Chief Conservator of Forests to the Director of the tiger reserve, states that the unit is at a distance of 3 km from the reserve, does not meet the requirements of a notification of 21 June 2018, and that the owner has not taken permission or consent from the board. The other, dated 3 June 2024 from the reserve office, states that no application in that matter had been submitted before that office, and records the position that until the eco-sensitive zone is notified the 10 km limit is treated as the zone in line with the Supreme Court order of 3 June 2024 in the related matter. On that first order the tribunal held that the application raised substantial issues, issued notice, directed service, and listed the matter. It granted no stay, made no finding on the location question, and made no finding on the merits.
The case has moved procedurally since. The order of 17 July 2026 records that two issues, the location of the unit in the flood plain and in the elephant corridor, remain unclarified, that the Uttarakhand pollution control board had written on 29 January 2026 to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate at Doiwala and to the District Forest Officer at Dehradun seeking the factual position, and that the information was still awaited. The tribunal directed the Chief Secretary and the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests to file affidavits within four weeks on those two questions, and dealt with a costs application. The order of 3 September 2026 reduced a previously imposed cost on the state, allowed additional documents filed by the unit to be taken on record with two weeks for replies, and listed the matter for 25 November 2026. That is the current position in the sources checked on 24 October 2026: notice issued, issues framed, evidence being filed, no merits decision.
The Wildlife Institute of India report, as reported
The flood plain point comes from a separate document. The Indian Express report of 22 August 2024 states that the Wildlife Institute of India, appearing in response to the tribunal’s notice, submitted a report that part of the proposed stone crusher unit falls within the active floodplain of the river Song, which sees regular elephant movement, and that the river is used by elephants and other wildlife to reach the Lal Thappar and Teen Pani corridors. The newspaper describes the report as dated 16 August 2024; the NGT order of 22 August 2024 lists it as dated 6 August 2024. This date discrepancy is unresolved in the sources read here. The newspaper account says the report noted that the proposed unit lies in the Song floodplain at about 0.5 km from the Kansrao reserve forest, 1 km from Lachhiwala and 2.5 km from Barkot, that a field visit by a team on 7 August 2024 found an elephant dung pile at the edge of Kansrao reserved forest about 380 m from the proposed site, and that it recommended judicious riverfront management of the Song.
That is a press report summarising an institute report filed before a tribunal, and it is attributed here in exactly that chain. The underlying institute report was not read for this article, so the figures above are the newspaper’s account as published on 22 August 2024, and this page does not upgrade them to a tribunal finding. The tribunal has not, in any of the orders read here, recorded a conclusion about where the unit sits.
A third proceeding, about a wall, is not about either siting question
Original Application No. 772 of 2022 is a different case with a different subject: a grievance about the non-construction of a protection wall from Simbalkhal to SIDCUL to protect the reserved forest and to reduce elephant conflict and mining and crushing close to it. By order of 16 May 2023 the tribunal disposed of that application directing construction of the wall over the entire 2 km stretch, recording in the same order that mining was not currently taking place because the stone crusher was not working, and directing the Director to ensure that mining is not allowed without the requisite environmental clearance and within prohibited distance from the boundary wall. The order of 19 February 2024 records that a report dated 14 September 2023 disclosed that the wall had not been constructed and that Sidhbali Stone Crusher was found to be closed. The order of 6 October 2026 is about the wall again: it lists geo-coordinates for the remaining 2 km stretch, records a submission about a report of 23 February 2026, grants time, and lists the matter for 19 January 2027.
The reason that case matters here is narrow. It is the place where a dated field report records the Sidhbali unit as closed. It is not a siting case, it decides nothing about distances or clearances, and it must not be read across into Original Application No. 780 of 2024, which concerns a different company. Merging them would produce a claim no document supports.
What none of these records say
- No unit inside the park. Nothing read here states that either unit lies inside the park. The distance figures in the High Court record are measured from the park boundary, the buffer area of the tiger reserve and a stream, and they do not agree with one another. This article prints them and flags them.
- No current operating status. The most recent statement about the Sidhbali unit located here is a field report of September 2023 recorded in a tribunal order of February 2024. For the Balaji Associates unit the record shows a project being set up and a case running. Status for either unit today is not asserted.
- No clearance either way. No wildlife clearance, environmental clearance beyond the one dated 1 February 2024 that carries condition 78, or board approval for either unit appears in these orders as granted or refused after they were filed.
- No stay and no merits ruling. The tribunal has issued notice, framed issues, sought affidavits and taken documents on record. None of the orders read here grants interim relief to any party or decides the merits.
- No merged entities. This page concerns M/s Shri Sidhbali Stones and M/s Balaji Associates as they are named in these cases. Other businesses with similar names are not addressed, and nothing here is carried over to them.
- No legal conclusion. Whether a project is lawful, whether a zone applies and whether a distance is compliant are questions for the authorities and the courts. This is a reading of what is printed, not an opinion on it.
How to read the next report about a crusher near Rajaji
Four questions do most of the work. Which unit, because two companies in one paragraph is how unrelated cases get merged. Which forum and which case number, because a High Court petition, a tribunal wall application and a tribunal siting application produce different kinds of order. Which date, because a September 2023 field note reported in February 2024 is not a statement about today. And which step, since proposal, environmental clearance, wildlife clearance, board approval, stay, merits decision and operation are six separate stages that summaries compress into the word running. For how the eco-sensitive zone around this reserve is defined and for the 10 km default that appears in these orders, our riverbed mining explainer carries the primary documents; for the corridor and crossing science in this western landscape, our wildlife crossings article reads the camera-trap study; and for the habit of checking a claim against its source, how to verify an operator or a claim sets out the method.
Stone crushers near Rajaji questions answered
Which court ordered the Sidhbali stone crusher to stop, and what did it direct?
The Uttarakhand High Court at Nainital, in Writ Petition (PIL) No. 168 of 2019, judgment of 2 January 2023 by Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Ramesh Chandra Khulbe. In paragraph 99 the court allowed the petition and directed Respondent Nos. 5 and 6, the parties operating the unit of M/s Shri Sidhbali Stones, to stop the operation of the stone crusher forthwith. The same paragraph directed them to apply to the National Board for Wildlife for clearance, directed that board to examine the case and decide by a speaking order within three months of the judgment, provided that the unit may resume if approval is granted, and provided that if approval is refused the plant, equipment and machinery must be removed from site within two months of that order.
What distances from the park does the record actually print?
Several, and they do not agree with each other. The counter affidavit of the unit operators stated about 13 km terrestrially and 6.4 km aerially from the core zone of Rajaji National Park. The report of the Conservator of Forest placed before the court and dated 11 March 2020 states that the aerial distance of the stone crusher from Rajaji National Park is 6.4 km, that the linear distance of the outermost boundary of the unit from the buffer area of Rajaji Tiger Reserve is about 161 m, and that the distance to the Sigaddi stream is about 120 m, with a further Conservator report of 21 October 2021 on record reiterating that the unit is within the eco-sensitive zone. The court itself noted on 31 October 2021 that there was an utter confusion in the figures, including a 3.39 km figure from a map on record, and asked for the distance measured from the boundary of the park. The reply gave 6.4 km aerial from the park boundary. The operative paragraph 97 of the 2023 judgment then describes the unit as located at a distance of only 161 meters from the boundary of the Rajaji National Park, which does not match the Conservator figure of 161 m from the buffer area of the tiger reserve. This page prints both and flags the mismatch rather than resolving it.
Is the Sidhbali unit operating today?
This article does not say, because the sources checked on 24 October 2026 do not settle it. The High Court ordered the operation stopped on 2 January 2023. In the separate National Green Tribunal matter, Original Application No. 772 of 2022, the order of 19 February 2024 records that a report dated 14 September 2023 disclosed that the Sidhbali Stone Crusher was found to be closed. The later order in that matter, of 6 October 2026, concerns the coordinates of a protection wall, grants time on the wall question and lists the matter for 19 January 2027, and says nothing about the crusher. So the most recent statement about that unit located here is a September 2023 field report recorded in February 2024, and nothing beyond that is claimed.
What does the record show about the Balaji Associates unit?
That it is a proposed unit whose case is still running. The National Green Tribunal order of 12 July 2024 in Original Application No. 780 of 2024 records that the applicant is questioning the permission and setting up of M/s Balaji Associates, described as Respondent No. 10, with complaints that the unit is being set up in the eco-sensitive zone of Rajaji Tiger Reserve, that wildlife clearance from the National Board for Wildlife was necessary and had not been obtained, and that it is in an elephant corridor. That order quotes condition 78 of the environmental clearance dated 1 February 2024, which makes the clearance subject to obtaining clearance under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 from the competent authority. The tribunal issued notice and listed the matter; it granted no stay and made no finding on the merits. On 17 July 2026 it directed the Chief Secretary and the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests of Uttarakhand to file affidavits on the flood plain and elephant corridor questions, and on 3 September 2026 it took additional documents on record and listed the matter for 25 November 2026.
Are the two units the same case, and is either one inside the park?
They are not the same case, and this page does not describe either as inside the park. The Sidhbali unit is the subject of the High Court petition decided on 2 January 2023, and is referred to in the National Green Tribunal protection wall matter of Original Application No. 772 of 2022, which is about constructing a wall from Simbalkhal to SIDCUL and is a separate case that must not be merged with the siting dispute. The Balaji Associates unit is Respondent No. 10 in Original Application No. 780 of 2024. Nothing read for this article states that either unit stands inside the park; the distances printed in the record are measured from park, buffer or stream boundaries and are used here only to explain how the eco-sensitive zone and clearance questions arose. This is a reading of documents and it is not legal advice.