‘SC, not HC, can stay NGT verdict’

The K. Chandrashekar Rao-led Telangana government has secured suspension of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) orders from the High Court on a few occasions in the past.

According to the NGT Act 2010, the Supreme Court alone is the appellate authority against NGT orders. However, division benches of both the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh High Court headed by Justice Ramesh Ranganathan have intervened in three separate cases and stayed the NGT orders.

The courts were exercising the power of judicial review conferred under Article 226 of the Constitution.

After separation of the High Courts between the two Telugu states, the Telangana High Court on Wednesday stayed the NGT order on the sensational case involving the Chief Minister’s son and Information Technology Minister K.T. Rama Rao. The NGT wanted fact finding to be done on the alleged construction of a huge farmhouse in the prohibited area abutting the twin water bodies of Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar.

According to Section 22 of the NGT Act, 2010, ‘any person aggrieved by any award, decision or order of the Tribunal, may file appeal to the Supreme Court.’

In another case, the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad, in WP 104 of 2017, stayed the NGT, Southern Zone order asking the Telangana government to not proceed with construction of Palamuru Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Scheme in the absence of clearance from the forest department. The order was stayed by a division bench headed by Justice Ramesh Ranganathan, on the grounds that it was issued ex-parte.

“The National Green Tribunal Act is a specialised Act and specifically related only to environment. Therefore, when the Act specifically states that only the Supreme Court would have jurisdiction over any and all appeals, the High Courts regularly have, and ought to, desist exercising their jurisdiction under Article 226 as there is a definitive alternative remedy. Governments are abusing the vast ambit of the Article. Therefore any appeal from the present order by the NGT ought to have been addressed to the Supreme Court,” says High Court advocate Rachana Reddy, who secured the said order from the NGT.

Another order of the NGT on the same PRLIS project was stayed by a division bench headed by Justice Ramesh Ranganathan in WP No

18236 of 2017 and this time the ground was that the NGT order was issued by the Member (Legal) alone, in the absence of the Member (Technical).

Rama Rao in his petition referred to another case — State of Telangana vs Hayatuddin — that came up before a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court headed by Justice Ramesh Ranganathan, which stayed the NGT order in WP No 34458 of

2017.