Chennai: The Madras high court has granted 3 months time to the Union government to examine the appointment of an additional expert member on a regular basis to the National Green Tribunal (Southern Zone), Chennai. The tribunal is facing difficulty in creation of the roster and there is an acute need for another expert in the panel. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan gave the directive while disposing of a Public Interest Litigation from advocate D. Karthik.
According to Karthik, after the constitution of NGT, Southern Zone bench, all the cases pending before the high courts in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Madras including matters from Puducherry have been transferred for disposal by the NGT. However, due to want of more expert members as presiding officers, there has been huge delay in listing cases for hearing.
At present, two judicial members, namely Justice P. Jyothimani and Justice M.S. Nambiar, were sitting in shifts with the only available expert member Dr P.S. Rao. The previous expert member Dr Nagendiran has resigned from the office a few months back and no member has been appointed in his place till date. There were various issues relating to environmental law that were arising in all the southern states. To effectively adjudicate these issues two benches were absolutely essential in the Southern Zone of NGT, he added.
He said in the Principal Bench, there were a total of 5 members out of which 3 were judicial members including Chairperson and two were expert members. There were two courts that were situated at the Principal Bench and even in the Central, Eastern and Western Benches, the members sit on a regular basis and not in alternative basis. The volume of litigations with respect to environment has increased manifold in the southern states and it was only due to this fact that a second court was actually established a few years back in Chennai. However, without there being sufficient expert members, the Tribunal could not function effectively.
Due to lack of adequate expert members in the Southern Bench, there was a huge backlog of pending litigation and the advocates were having enormous difficulty in getting the cases listed so as to enable speedy disposal of crucial and serious issues. He sent a representation to the government to appoint an additional expert member to the Southern Zone. However, there was no response, he added.
