PANAJI
The Union Government informed the Bombay High Court at Goa that the Western Bench of the National Green Tribunal would be made operational by the end of April after the appointment of three judicial members.
In response to a petition filed by the Goa Foundation, that the non-functioning western bench of the NGT was prejudicial to litigants from Goa, the High Court had in March this year sought a response from the Registrar of the NGT in Delhi.
Assistant Solicitor General of India Adv Pravin Faldessai, who represented the NGT and the Union government before the Court, sought that the matter be postponed by a month in view of the upcoming appointments.
In a statement before the Court, Adv Faldessai informed that judicial members are due to be appointed shortly. “One of the judicial members will be assigned the duties at the Western Zonal Bench at Pune as a result of which, the Western Zonal Bench at Pune will be operational as before. All this, in all probability, will be completed by the end of this month,” Adv Faldessai told the court.
The Bombay High Court at Goa had taken up the matter and issued notice to the Registrar of the National Green Tribunal as well as the central government after the Registrar of the NGT transferred all western zone matters to the central zone based in Bhopal after one of the members of the western zone bench in Pune resigned in January.
The Goa Foundation approached the High Court challenging the decision saying that the move was arbitrary and ad-hoc and that the Registrar had no powers to do so.
The Western Zone bench has been inoperative from 4.1.2022, ever since the resignation of its judicial member. The Supreme Court of India, by its order dated 31.01.2018, had disallowed single member benches from functioning, as this would be contrary to the NGT statute.
The Registrar General of the NGT in a notice issued on January 4 states that all matters filed before the Western Zone bench will now be heard by the Central Zone bench situated in Bhopal, and select items to be heard by the Principal bench Delhi.
The Goa Foundation told the Court that presently the Western Zone Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) is left with only one expert member. There is no judicial member assigned to the Western Zone Bench since January, 2022.
Adv Norma Alvares, also pointed out that the Supreme Court in an interim order restrained the Chairperson of the NGT from constituting a Single Member Bench instead of a Division Bench consisting of one judicial member and an expert member.
