Law Commission of India’s recent report on tribunals has given a fresh lease of life to the demand of the State’s legal fraternity and people to have a bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Bengaluru to have easy access to justice on environmental issues.
The report titled “Assessment of statutory frameworks of Tribunals in India,” submitted to the Union Ministry of Law and Justice on October 27, has recommended that “benches of the tribunals should be located at all places where the High Courts are situated.”
“If the benches of the tribunals are located at the places where the High Court is situated, the right to access to justice will not have any adverse impact,” the Commission has stated.
This recommendation, point out lawyers, must get immediate attention of the authorities which must set up a bench of the NGT in Bengaluru as people of the State are now forced to travel to Chennai, where NGT’s regional bench is located, or NGT’s principal bench at New Delhi whenever regional bench is non-functional. Discussing access to justice, the Commission has pointed to a report, prepared by the Supreme Court’s Centre for Research and Planning, in which it has been stated: “Access to justice is meaningful when each citizen has a ready access to court … As a starting point, it is necessary that a court is available to each citizen within 50 km from his residence or within a maximum travelling distance of half a day.”
The NGT is the first legal forum available for the litigants on environmental issues after the enactment of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, as the litigations on environmental issues were transferred to the NGT from the High Courts, which were earlier entertaining public interest litigation as well as individual pleas on environmental issues.
On excluding powers of the courts, including the High Courts, the Commission has stated that “there must be an equally effective mechanism at the grass-root level in order to ensure access to justice to the litigants” before taking away the powers of the courts from dealing with subjects specifically allocated to the tribunals.
“There should be National Tribunal with regional sitting and State-wise sitting to reduce the burden of courts and to attain the objectives for which they have been established, and to ensure access justice,” the commission said, while pointing out that the Supreme Court itself had held that “the access to justice is not only a fundamental right but it is as well a human right and a valuable right.”
