After 17 years, SC’s forest bench to be named green bench

NEW DELHI: Nearly 17 years after the Supreme Court designated a ‘forest bench’ to deal with cases relating to environment and forests, it will now be rechristened as ‘ green bench’.

The forest bench began its journey by passing the first order on December 12, 1996 and since then has come a long way, dealing with violators with an iron hand.

Chief Justice P Sathasivam on Monday told senior advocate Harish Salve, who has for long rendered assistance to the court as amicus curiae along with advocates A D N Rao and Siddharth Chowdhury, that the apex court has decided to rename the forest bench as green bench.

During the last hearing, Salve had suggested to the forest bench, now headed by Justice A K Patnaik, that it would be proper to transfer to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) certain environment related cases, which required monitoring of implementation of apex court’s orders.

The green bench of the Supreme Court will continue to oversee matters relating to sanctuaries and national parks as wildlife is not part of the NGT’s jurisdiction.