Environmental Law- National Green Tribunal Act 2010

Synopsis

  1. Objective of the Act
  2. Members and authorities under the Act
  3. Features of the act
  4. Did this law worked ?
  5. NGT in News

Objective

Long term objective of the act is of course protection of environment.

Short term objective is to resolve the environmental dispute in speedy and effective manner.

Didn't we had such authority earlier? Well, we had. Name was National Environmental Appellate Authority, under NEAA Act 1997. It was bit in-effective, that is why we passed new act for constitution of new authority.

NGT Act provides for constitution of specialize environmental authority i.e National Green Tribunal which could deal with environmental dispute in super speedy manner.

Authorities under Act

Act provides for appointment of various authorities. Below chart describes various authorities and their qualification of the appointment.



Few important points about authorities:


These appointed authorities can be removed on below grounds. These are the same grounds applicable in every environmental laws for removal authority. They are common for removal of authorities appointed across different environmental laws.

So grounds are as below:




Salient features of the act.

Act provides for establishment of National Green Tribunal, providing speedy and efficient disposal of environmental cases.

They have five benches. FIVE BENCHES at different places spread across India.



National Green Tribunal will oversee cases arising out of below laws.


But they will not overlook all the cases arising out in above laws. They will entertain the cases which have substantial question related to environment. What is this "Substantial question"? It is defined in Section 2(m). They are in nutshell questions which impact community at large and not individual or individual groups.



Act also provides some procedural ease. Meaning, technicalities of Civil Procedure Code are not mandatory for dispute in National Green Tribunal.

Here is how it makes procedure easy:


Natural justice in layman's term is fair procedure and fair decision by objective decision maker.

These tribunals also required to follow "precautionary principle" and "polluter pay principle". These are developed by courts in environmental jurisprudence. Do you know cases in which court gave judgments on those principle ?

Also this act makes only one appeal. This also reduces the time for dispute.

Benefits and Problems

NGT have played crucial role in environment protection since in institution.
However it have some problems too.




NGT in News

Below are some news clips. Though NGT is established for protection of environment, you can bypass it if you have friends in government at the top. 

Here are some recent news clips. NGT have good power. Sometime it even questions government actions, asks government to do things.


NGT also punished one Baba who keeps asking people to vote for particular political party.





That's an overview about National Green Tribunal Act, 2010


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