Do you think we need a permanent bench of NGT (National Green Tribunal) in North East India? This is what happening behind the scene. Near about seventy advocates of Gauhati High Court Bar Association has signed a memorandum to our President K.N. Choudhary Sir. I went to each of my Bar colleagues submitting before them the importance of NGT and no one denied to sign the memorandum. I am very happy to learn from our Secretary General Madame that a letter and memorandum has already been sent to Chief Justice of India from the Bar. On the other hand, Mobina Akhtar spokesperson of Environmental NGO Forum, Assam has also taken up it as an issue. For my friends who have not heard about NGT here is a brief extract from the memorandum. “The NGT has been established on the date 18.10.2010 under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010 intended to bring effective administration of Green Justice in India. NGT is unique Justice Delivery System, because it has Non-judicial Members who are basically experts from scientific backgrounds and pronounces judgments together with the judicial members. The NGT Kolkota at present has the territorial jurisdiction for the entire seven sister states of north east, which means a litigant from north east India has to travel a great distance to redress their grievances. North East is unique region of India comprising people mostly of Mongoloid and Semi-mongoloid races. Its culture is similar to the Southeast Asian Countries. North East India is bestowed with abundant natural resources and is the greenest most region of India. According to the State of Forest Report, 2011, released by Forest Survey of India, the North Eastern region has a forest cover of 1,73,219 sq km, which constitutes 66.07% of its geographical area. The region constitutes just 7.98% of the total geographical area of the country, but accounts for nearly a fourth of Indias total forest cover. Out of the two biodiversity hotspots of Western Ghats and Eastern Himalaya in India, north east region is at the latter. Apart from several national parks, sanctuaries and forests reserves, North East region of India has several forest areas which the communities have been controlling and conserving. Just because a tribunal is not there in North East, it does not mean that cases would not be filed in the NGT. Many cases are not filed at NGT at present because majority of people of north east is poor to afford professional lawyers from central part of India. It is undeniable truth that the higher judiciary of Supreme Court and High Courts is overburdened with a huge backlog of cases. Environment has always been important concerns for higher judiciary and had delivered remarkable judgments for protection of environment in the past. However the higher judiciary today has to deal equally other important issues of the society at large. Thus the need was felt to have an alternative forum so today we have NGT. The rationale for an alternative forum for environ-legal remedy could be well understood. But the NGT must be at that distant, equal to that for High Courts in the State. For example, if an environmental case is at a High Court and suddenly the case gets transferred then the litigant would definitely suffer”.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 06:10:58 +0000
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