Green Tribunal to be headed by Justice Panta

The National Green Tribunal, a body to adjudicate against environmental violations in India, in the offing with the environment ministry has decided to appoint retired judge of Supreme Court L.S. Panta as its chairperson.

Updated on: Aug 10, 2010, 23:10:00 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The National Green Tribunal, a body to adjudicate against environmental violations in India, in the offing with the environment ministry has decided to appoint retired judge of Supreme Court L.S. Panta as its chairperson.

The ministry is also drafting rules for the tribunal, having power to impose a fine of up to R10 crore and jail of up to three years. This will enable citizens to file complaints against government or private bodies for environmental degradation.

However, there will be no limit for the compensation that the tribunal can award to victims of environmental degradation.

What’s more, anybody will be able to approach the tribunal. “NGO, an individual, journalist, state pollution board or a social action group... We have opened up doors,” an official said.

This will mean that if somebody finds a neighbourhood drain has contaminated underground water, they can file a complaint against the local body with the tribunal and seek damages.

No such facility is available as of now due to the National Environment Appellate Authority’s limited role of hearing cases related to environment clearances. The tribunal, which will subsequently take over, will have power to decide on matters relating to seven environment laws including water, air and bio-diversity acts.

But the biggest step in making the tribunal, approved in the budget session of Parliament, is that Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh has accepted Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia’s suggestion to appoint Panta as its head.

“The government will nominate other members of the tribunal in consultation with the new chairperson,” a senior ministry official said.

The notification regarding the chairperson is likely to be made this week.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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