Top court strikes down plea for NGT benches in each state

NEW DELHI: There is no need for National Green Tribunal (NGT) benches in every state, held the Supreme Court on Wednesday as it dismissed a petition which questioned specific provisions of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, on allocation of benches and direct appeals against tribunal orders to the Supreme Court.

The bench of justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy said, “With the low case load, if the NGT benches are set up in all 28 States and 8 Union territories as is suggested by the petitioners, the judges and other members in these forums might be left twiddling their thumbs. Accordingly, no basis is seen to allow one NGT bench in every State.”

The court order came on a petition filed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court Advocates Bar Association and the District Bar Association, having their registered offices at Jabalpur, which demanded for a bench in each state having a High Court. It also challenged the validity of the NGT Act for bypassing appeals to high courts as Section 14 and 22 of the Act provided for direct appeal to the Supreme Court.

The petitioners had claimed that in environmental litigation, issues are local and tribunals should be accessible to people. The petitioners, represented by advocate Siddharth R Gupta, told the court that MP presently has a bench at Bhopal which caters to three states – MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Gupta argued for an NGT bench for MP to be located at Jabalpur.

The bench noted from a chart showing pendency figures across NGT zonal benches showed that as on March 31 this year, zone wise aggregate pendency of cases was only 2,237, while the average annual disposal by all benches was 2,799, higher than the pendency figure.

The court then dealt with the petitioners’ argument that NGT should provide for appeal to high courts. The bench said, “The provision for appeal to High Court should not therefore be created by issuing a writ of Mandamus as that would be legislating through judicial order, and would impinge upon the wellfounded concept of separation of powers.”

The Court also upheld Section 3 of the Act which gave the Centre the power to establish NGT benches.

“It must be borne in mind that the operationalization of the NGT, including the location of its benches, was closely monitored by the Supreme Court…since, the Government is acting on the issue with the guidance of this Court, and the Government is obliged to follow the objectives of the NGT Act, adequate safeguards are seen to guide the government...” it said.

With the low case load, if benches are set up in all 28 states and 8 UTS... the judges... might be left twiddling their thumbs... SC BENCH