The SIPCOT Area Community Environmental Monitoring (SACEM), a consumer body, has urged the Union Ministry for Environment and Forests to immediately appoint judicial and expert members in the southern bench of National Green Tribunal (NGT) to make it functional.
In a memorandum addressed to Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and T. Arulselvam, coordinator of SACEM, said the southern bench of NGT had remained non-functional for want of quorum. “The task of filling the vacancy is solely on your Ministry and inaction on the part of your Ministry shows that the plight of the people is not a cause of concern. We would like to highlight that the latest WHO report has shown the dismal state of air quality in India.
“In such a situation, a grievance redress mechanism is of critical importance,” he said.
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‘Rights curtailed’
Mr. Arulselvam pointed out that the non-functioning of the Bench had severely curtailed the litigants’ legal right to environment, which is a regarded as a Fundamental Rights under Article 21 of the Constitution.
It is time consuming and expensive for the litigants to travel to New Delhi to approach the Principal Bench. The non-functioning of NGT has severely curtailed the fundamental rights of the people of not only Tamil Nadu but also all the Southern States.
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SACEM has demanded that till the NGT is made functional, no environmental or forest clearance is granted to any project by the Ministry or State Impact Assessment Authorities within the respective States coming under the jurisdiction of the southern bench of NGT.