NGT works with less than one-third of staff

Established in October 2010 for effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environment and conservation of forests and other natural resources, the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) functioning has been paralysed due to vacancies.

As on Tuesday, which is NGT chairman justice (retd) Swatanter Kumar’s last day in office, the green court will be left with less than one-third of its sanctioned strength of 20 officials.

Two more judicial expert members, retired justices M S Nambiar and UD Salvi are set to retire in January and February respectively next year.

Last ditch efforts by the NGT bar association to save the specialised forum from inching towards closure also failed after the Supreme Court, last week, refused a two-month extension to its retiring members.

Advocate ADN Rao, appearing for the NGT bar, urged a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra to pass a judicial order for a three-month extension to retiring members. Pointing to the NGT’s depleting strength, Rao pleaded with the top court to extend the concession of extension of service of retiring mem-

bers as it did in the case of the case of Central Administrative Tribunal and the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

Starting with seven benches all over the country, the NGT is now effectively working with just two regular benches, one of which is the principal bench in Delhi headed by justice (retd) Kumar. The other is in Bhopal. Under the NGT Act, a regular bench should comprise one judicial and one expert member. Due to non-filling of vacancies, there are only two expert members left — one in Delhi and the other in Bhopal. To tide over the existing situation, NGT set up two singlemember benches headed by a judicial member each to sit in Chennai and Kolkata.

This new creation has been challenged by the NGT bar in the SC and is pending adjudication.

Due to paucity of members, only one of the three courts in Delhi’s principle bench is sitting. Two of the four zonal benches have also stopped functioning.

Despite the constraints, NGT has been able to clear cases as per the mandate, which is to dispose cases within six months.