Environmental justice: Is the National Green Tribunal of India effective?
- In 1986, the then Chief Justice of India had suggested to the Government of India that it might be desirable to set up Environmental Courts on the regional basis with one professional Judge and two experts drawn from the Ecological Sciences Research Group.
- The Parliament had passed laws related to the establishment of a National Environment Tribunal (1995) and a National Environment Appellate Authority (1997).
- The Authority was intended to act primarily as a forum for challenges to environmental clearances while the Tribunal could award limited amounts of compensation in cases of environmental damage to life or property.
- It was clear that the enforcement, protection, and adjudication of environmental laws required a specialised and dedicated body.
- The first draft of the NGT Bill was circulated as part of a pre-legislative consultation process and inspired widespread debate.
Need for National Green Tribunal in India
- Over-burdening of Supreme Court on environmental issues: The sheer number and complexity of cases led the Supreme Court of India to designate a special Bench to handle the matters on environmental issues.
- Combination of judges and environmental experts: A tribunal, staffed with judges and environmental experts, would need to be empowered to hear environmental issues so that the burden on the High Courts and the Supreme Court could be reduced.
- Increase in quality of time spent on environmental issues: The quality of time spent on environmental issues could also be increased as, unlike the Supreme Court, the tribunal could have benches in various States, thereby increasing access to all citizens.
- In 1999, the Supreme Court in the landmark case of A.P. Pollution Control Board vs Prof. M.V. Nayudu (Retd.) had added its own emphasis on the need for a court that was a combination of a Judge and Technical Experts with an appeal to the Supreme Court from the Environmental Court.
Importance of National Green Tribunal
- Emergence of environmental legal practitioners: The NGT has created a new breed of legal practitioners, protected vast acres of forest land and halted polluting construction activities in metros and smaller towns.
- Penalizing errant officials: The NGT has penalised errant officials who have turned a blind eye towards enforcing the laws, and held large corporate entities to account.
- Protection on tribal communities: The NGT has protected the rights of tribal communities and ensured the enforcement of the “polluter pays” principle in letter and spirit.
- The NGT has the power to hear all civil cases relating to environmental issues and questions that are linked to the implementation of laws listed in Schedule I of the NGT Act.
- The NGT is not bound by the procedure laid down under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, but shall be guided by principles of natural justice.
- The significance of a separate tribunal lies in its role to facilitate sustainable development.
Challenges to National Green Tribunal
- Rise to diverse volume of litigation: The downside to the vast and all-encompassing scope, which covers forests, wildlife, environment, climate change and coastal protection, is that it gives rise to an equally diverse volume of litigation.
- Tribunalisation of National Green Tribunal: The environmental non-governmental organisation took issue with the name and argued that the word ‘Green’ could act as a green signal to potential polluters.
- Balance of power tilted towards Central Government: The rules relating to constitution and composition of selection committee tilts the balance of power in favor of Central Government.
- Over-emphasis on dilution of powers of NGT: Instead of giving financial and administrative support to the NGT, the efforts are usually directed towards diluting its powers and defeating the very purpose behind its creation.
- Economic burden on litigants: Many lawyers practicing in the NGT have expressed their discomfort with the video conference hearing which they feel has put enormous cost and burden on their clients.
Measures to strengthen National Green Tribunal
- Guidelines for effective exercise of powers: The Indian government should lay down guidelines for the effective exercise of powers by the NGT in order to ensure appropriate responses to environmental litigations.
- Proper implementation of decisions of NGT: The decisions of the Tribunal and expert groups should be respected and implemented by all other government departments.
- The National Green Tribunal should be equipped with all the resources required for scrutinizing and reviewing petitions and investigating the intentions of petitioners who seek its attention.
- Comprehensive legal framework: The legal framework also needs to be comprehensive and suitably designed for objective interpretation of environmental laws and policies.
Road ahead
- The NGT must focus less on governance issues and more on adjudication, and the benches have to expand manifold and the vacancies have to be filled quickly.
- The NGT must continue to remain a proactive ‘inconvenience’ to all those who, while pontificating grandiloquently on the need for environmental protection, take actions that make economic growth ecologically unsustainable.
- The Government of India must realise the risk of pending of thousands environmental litigations in zonal benches to its ambitious economic growth target and policy to lure investors because the NGT deserves more attention today than what it has been hitherto.
- The government needs to provide adequate financial and human resources if it does not want the NGT to wither away.
- The environmental activists hope that the National Green Tribunal will continue to address the unequal distribution of environmental goods and burdens and protect the rights of underdogs.
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