Understanding the National Green Tribunal (NGT)
By Elizabeth Mathew
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) was established under the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 with the aim to achieve effective, speedy and inexpensive disposal of cases pertaining to environmental protection and conservation of forests and natural resources and to provide adequate compensation and relief for victims of pollution and environmental damage. The new body established under the Act was vested with the powers to hear initial complaints and appeals and to impose greater penalties for noncompliance, both marked improvements from the National Environment Appellate Authority which it superseded. Reviewing the Bill in 2009, the Parliamentary Standing Committee acknowledged the visible manifestations of exacerbating climate change, contradictions between the clamour for economic development and the pressing need for environmental protection and pendency of environment-related cases in already overburdened higher courts as reasons justifying the need for a specialized judicial body that acts as a fast-track mechanism adjudicating environmental cases. There was also the recognition that most environmental cases involve multi-disciplinary questions which are better addressed by trained experts than by judges who may not be adequately equipped to confront domain-specific technicalities complicating the issue at hand. The Tribunal was set up as per recommendations of the Supreme Court, Law Commission and India’s international legal obligations to implement national environment laws.
The NGT as an entity under the Supreme Court, possesses the powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure for the purpose of discharging its functions even though it is not bound by procedure under the Code of Civil Procedure. It is instead guided by the principles of natural justice (principles of natural justice are those rules which have been laid down by the Courts as being the minimum protection of the rights of the individual against the arbitrary procedure that may be adopted by a judicial, quasi-judicial and administrative authority while making an order affecting those rights) and ‘Polluter Pays’. The Tribunal is set up in five zones — North (Delhi), Central (Bhopal), East (Kolkata), South (Chennai) and West (Pune). The Tribunal is headed by a full-time Chairperson who sits in the principal bench situated in the North zone which is supposed to have at least ten but not more than twenty full-time judicial members and at least ten but not more than twenty full-time expert members which the Union Government may notify from time to time. The full-time tenure of bench members permits the continuous and consistent monitoring of implementation of environmental laws that the NGT has jurisdiction over (which still do not cover all environmental laws in the country). The rubric guiding the functioning of the NGT mandates a minimum number of members on the bench (and an equivalent composition of judicial and expert members) for adjudication and that every application must be disposed of within six months of its filing.
It is notable that India was one of the first few countries in the world to institutionalize a dedicated judicial forum to look into environmental concerns. From the time of its establishment, the NGT has been a force to be reckoned with, calling out state governments for violations and leniency in enforcing environmental clearance regulations. The 2012 POSCO judgement was a landmark verdict by the NGT that ordered the stalling of a mega steel project under South Korea’s Pohang Iron and Steel Company in Odisha, a venture that received the green signal from the state government without a comprehensive assessment of its environmental impact. Citing negligence of environmental impact yet again, the NGT was firm in its abrogation of the new procedure formulated by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change in 2016 that allowed construction projects under 50,000m2 area to self-certify environmental compliance at the receipt of which local authorities were expected to permit construction instead of awaiting scrutiny of state environment assessment bodies (Raghunandan 2020).
In spite of its crucial role in balancing the scales of environmental justice, the functioning of the National Green Tribunal is riddled with shortcomings that threaten to obstruct justice. In the past decade, the body has been unable to attain its minimum strength of expert and judicial members, with the current number at four judicial and two expert members. Hearings take place by video conference over a maximum of two hours making it an ordeal for lawyers and clients to effectively present their matter while it is also common for cases to be frequently adjourned or listed in an arbitrary manner. Cases are rarely disposed within the prescribed time limit. The Government has been lax in its appointment of experts to the bench, resulting in a number of cases where the lack of technical cognizance led to a capricious compensation amount being ordered, the arbitrary basis of which is appealed in the Supreme Court, defeating the purpose of the NGT in relieving higher courts (Sahu 2019). The very Act fails to specify the composition of the Selection Committee that will appoint the expert and judicial members of the bench, an ambiguity that opens up a loophole for bias to slip into the judicial process.
Unlike the environmental courts of New Zealand and Australia that receive administrative and fiscal support based on regular review and restructuration (Sahu 2019), the NGT in India is more susceptible to interference and attempts at dilution of its powers by the Government itself. Emulating good practices and enforcing greater independence of the NGT could put us on the right track toward fair and effective environmental litigation, especially in the context of an increasingly ecologically aware and sensitive global polity.
References
Categorisation of Cases Filed in the National Green Tribunal. World Wild Fund. Retrieved from https://www.wwfindia.org/about_wwf/enablers/cel/national_green_tribunal/.
Sahu, G. (2019, September 23). Whither the National Green Tribunal?. Down to Earth. Retrieved from https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/environment/whither-the-national-green-tribunal--66879.
National Green Tribunal stalls POSCO. Centre for Science and Environment. Retrieved from https://www.cseindia.org/national-green-tribunal-stalls-posco-4004.
Raghunandan, D. (2020). India’s Climate Policy — Paris Agreement, NDC and After. Environmental Policy in India. Pp. 219. Routledge Publication.
