With the Supreme Court likely to hear a petition on Thursday against a recent amendment to the Finance Act on the norms for appointment of judicial and expert members of tribunals, many litigants and officials at the National Green Tribunal (NGT) will be watching keenly for any directions from the court. The Southern Bench of the NGT has lost quorum and almost all Benches will lose quorum by February next year if the vacancies are not filled.
Earlier this year, the Centre made amendments to the Finance Act allowing anyone with requisite judicial experience of 10 years and above to be eligible to become judicial members while also changing the norms for expert members. This amendment has been challenged and as the legal process gets underway appointments to tribunals including NGT are likely to get delayed.
A former judicial member told The Hindu that the amendments to the Finance Act were per se illegal. “These are in contravention of the NGT Act. It will most likely be struck down by the Supreme Court”.
The judicial member added that even if the SC struck down the amendment, it would still delay the appointments. “We are looking at may be another 3-4 months before the vacancies are filled. What will happen to all the cases that will be pending for such a long time?” the judicial member asked.
The Southern Bench sees the highest number of cases filed after the Principal Bench in Delhi.
A couple of lawyers who have cases pending at the NGT said they were unsure of when they would get judgements. “There is no quorum now as the sole expert member P.S. Rao retired last week ,” one of the lawyers said.
Loss of Ecology cases
Among cases that are already pending, nearly one lakh cases relating to Loss of Ecology were moved to the National Green Tribunal by the Madras High Court last year. While transferring the cases to the NGT, the Madras High Court directed the Centre to constitute an additional bench in Chennai to hear these cases. However, there has been no progress on this. The cases relate to compensation being sought by farmers affected by pollution of dyeing units in and around Tiruppur.
