‘Consider having NGT benches in every state’

NEW DELHI: Why cannot the National Green Tribunal (NGT) have its benches in every state to enable citizens to raise important issues of environment without having to travel hundreds of kilometres to approach one of the five existing benches, the Supreme Court asked the Union government on Tuesday.

A bench of justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy emphasised that the principle of access to justice coupled with the idea of protecting the environment should guide the Centre in considering more zonal benches.

“Why can’t you have NGT benches in every state? There is a point about access to justice and the cause of the environment. Having more benches may go a long way. It will be very helpful for the litigants and would also lighten the burden of the existing benches. Most importantly, this will bring this important forum to the doorstep of the citizens,” the bench told attorney general KK Venugopal.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court Bar Association, challenging various provisions of the NGT Act, which according to the association’s lawyer Siddharth R Gupta, gave unbridled power to the Centre in matters of establishment of tribunal and fixing the Supreme Court as the only appellate forum for contesting appeals arising out of the NGT orders. Gupta, on his part, underlined that the principal bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court is at Jabalpur, but the Union government, exercising its untrammelled powers, established the central zone bench at Bhopal. He rued that the law does not provide for any consultative process with the chief justice of the high court and that the litigants are also left high and dry in approaching these minimal numbers of zonal benches of the NGT.