Supreme Court lifts stay, National Green Tribunal may start work from May

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal, a judicial body exclusively to deal with environmental issues, is likely to start functioning from May with the Supreme Court lifting a stay imposed by Madras High Court on rules of appointment of its members. The apex court stayed the high court's order and directed the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) to "keep all rules and regulations in place by May 6" and inform the bench about its status, so that the body may start functioning.

A bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly also indicated that even if some deficiencies remain in the rules, the court will pass orders to the effect that petitions may be filed and interim orders may be sought from the green tribunal with immediate effect after May 7.

The bench passed the orders on a petition by MoEF seeking transfer of the case, challenging rules for appointment of members of National Green Tribunal, from Madras High Court to the apex court.

The Centre had sought transfer of the case on the ground that the apex court was already hearing a matter related to non-appointment of expert and judicial members for NGT, due to which the only environment appellate body has remained non- functional since it came into existence on October 18, 2010. The case was initiated in 2005 by environmental activist Vimal Bhai, challenging environment clearance granted for execution of 600 MW Loharinag-Pala hydroelectric power project at Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand.

Since then the case is pending due to non-appointment of members for National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA). With NGT coming into existence, NEAA ceased to exist but the problem of non-appointment of members continued and rendered NGT non-functional. The apex court had on December 16 last year directed the Centre to appoint expert and judicial members for the tribunal and make NGT functional in one month.

However, even as the appointment process was on, the Madras High Court stayed the rules for appointment of judicial members of NGT on a plea by a law student, M Naveen Kumar. Centre then sought transfer of the case from the high court to the Supreme Court.

Additional Solicitor General Indra Jaisingh during the previous hearing on Monday informed the court that five judicial and six expert members have been selected and MoEF had also finalised the rules of NGT's functioning. "If the stay order is vacated, six judicial benches will become operational," Jaisingh had submitted before the court.

On court's query on Thursday about the amount of time required to make NGT functional, Jaisingh sought two-week time saying, "The selection (of five judicial members and six experts) are likely to be approved by the Appointment Committee of Cabinet (ACC)."