Delhi residents protect Gandhi from smog
The National Green Tribunal is gasping for breath and fighting for its life while supervising measures intended to help save Delhiites from the current smog-pocalypse.
Thanks to non-filling of vacancies, the green court, set up six years ago as a specialised forum for effective and speedy disposal of cases pertaining to environment protection, forest conservation and compensation claims, is inching towards closure.
If urgent measures are not taken to appoint new judicial and expert members, the tribunal which has three courts in its principal bench in Delhi and four zonal benches (east, west, central and south) will soon be functioning with less than one-third of its sanctioned strength of 20.
Due to non-filling of vacancies against retirements, according to retirement dates of judges accessed by Mail Today, there will be only be three judicial members and two expert members left after February 12, 2018.
At present the strength is six (judicial members) and three (expert members) respectively. Alarmed at the state of affairs, the Delhi High Court recently asked the Centre if it ‘planned to wind up the NGT’?
In September, the Centre had told the court that it has received 80 applications for the post of judicial members and 150 for expert members. But mysteriously, things have not moved any further.
School children march to express their distress on the alarming levels of pollution in the city
‘Situation is so alarming that due to paucity of members, at present only one out of three courts of Delhi Principle Bench is functioning.
Two of the four zonal benches also stopped functioning mainly due to non-appointment of new expert members. As per the rules, each bench of the NGT should comprise of at least one judicial member and one expert member,’ Advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, who moved Delhi High Court seeking a direction to the Centre to take steps for immediate filling of vacancies, told Mail Today.
The retirement of two expert members — PC Mishra (East Zone, Kolkata Bench) and P Satyanarayana Rao (South Zone, Chennai Bench) — on Wednesday brought the functioning of these two benches to a grinding halt.
National Green Tribunal office in New Delhi
Tourists using Protective masks to save themselves from inhaling Pollution particles
A judicial member posted at the Central Zone Bench in Bhopal will finish his term on Friday. Two judicial members — the chairperson of the tribunal Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice VD Salvi — will be attaining superannuation on December 31, 2017, and February 13, 2018, respectively.
An expert member, Bikram Singh Sajwan, will be retiring on December 9, 2017.
As per the eligibility rules till now, the NGT chairperson should be a retired judge of the Supreme Court. Other judicial members are retired judges of high courts.
‘Expert members’ should have a professional qualification and a minimum of 15 years experience in the field of environment/forest conservation and related subjects.
But despite the constraints, the NGT is not doing a bad job vis-à-vis disposal of cases. Out of the 23,341 cases filed in 2011, when it was set up, 19,970 have been decided and the pendency is just 3,371 cases.
The high court has been of late staying some orders passed by the NGT due to lack of quorum in the bench. This problem is only set to aggravate if the appointments are delayed.
Advocate Bansal, who is also an executive member of the NGT Bar Association, said in his petition: ‘In short period of its existence, NGT has shown tremendous commitment towards delivery of environmental justice.
Despite that lackadaisical and apathetic attitude of the Central government regarding filling the vacancies is intriguing and appalling. Due to the red-tapism involved in bureaucracy, a fine institution like the NGT is heading towards a premature death.’
The shocking plight of the environment court comes out at a time when there is a buzz that the Centre is against a strong, active and assertive NGT.
The government has been at loggerheads with it on several occasions for creating roadblocks in fast-tracking of projects citing violation of environmental rules. The appointments may also be getting delayed as the Centre aims to have a major say in who will sit as judges of the NGT and other tribunals.
The Centre has modified the process of appointments. Instead of a senior judge, its chairperson will now be recommended by a five-member panel, which will be led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) or a nominee of the CJI, but a majority of the other members in the recruitment panel will be recommended by the environment ministry.
The new rules have been challenged in the Supreme Court.
