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Nimli, Rajasthan: Citing recent court cases, including the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) green lighting of the Great Nicobar projects, in which the judiciary has given orders that have put India’s environment and ecology in danger, former judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Deepak Gupta said that the judiciary is “stepping back” when it comes to the environment.

Gupta was addressing journalists at the release of the report titled ‘State of India’s Environment 2026’, at the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI) in Nimli, Rajasthan, on Wednesday, February 25. 

NGT experiment ‘not very successful’

Gupta, who has given several important judgments pertaining to the environment including the famous Him Parvesh judgment of 2012 which invoked the polluter pays principle (which, in a first, ordered a company that established a cement and thermal power plant in Himachal Pradesh to pay a huge amount of Rs 100 crore as environmental compensation to affected villagers), said that the judiciary has a very important role to play in the protection of the environment. 

A problem is that most judges are not qualified to hear environmental matters though they pass orders on it, said Gupta, who headed the green bench in Himachal Pradesh for three years. There were a lot of cases, however, and this was how the National Green Tribunal was born, he said.

The NGT, which is the apex green court of India, was formed in 2010 under the National Green Tribunal Act of 2010, for “effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection and conservation of forests and other natural resources”.  

“By and large we can all agree that the experiment [the NGT] has not been very successful. It wasn’t because the experiment was wrong, but it is the men who have failed the experiment,” Gupta said.

Former judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Deepak Gupta speaks at the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI) in Nimli, Rajasthan, on Wednesday, February 25. Photo: Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)

The role of the court is to develop jurisprudence. Unfortunately, what has now happened is that the court is more involved in deciding disputes. Instead it should be........

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