Serious concern were expressed by lawyers, retired Judges, Academicians, Civil Society Groups on the provisions of the National Green Bill during State level workshop organized at Bhubaneshwar, Orissa by local NGO Vasundhara and The Access Initiative, India Coalition on 7-11-2009. This was the first meeting organized in the Country on the Green Tribunal Bill which was introduced in the Parliament in July this year.

Delivering the key note address, Justice Vankatachalla, Former Judge of the Supreme Court and the Former Chairperson of the National Environment Appellate Authority expressed concern at the present state of environmental governance in the country and the fact that the Bill rather than solving any problem will only create more confusion. He stated that some of the key provision of the Bill were very defective. What is needed is the political and administrative will to make the Tribunals functional. He stated the hurdles that the Government created when he was made the first chairperson of the NEAA and said that if the same attitude prevails, the fate of the Green Tribunal will be no different from the NEAA. He called for a serious debate as to whether there is actually a need for such a Bill, since the work can be better performed if two Judges in every High court form a Green bench.

Prof Faizan Mustafa, Vice Chancellor of the National Law University of Orissa made a pointed critique of the provisons of the Green Tribunal Bill. He highlighted that the Bill limits the jurisdiction to “substantial questions relating to environment” which only includes instances where the community at large is affected or likely to be affected—but excludes individuals or groups of individuals. It is, therefore, unclear whether this law only seeks to promote class actions. If this is the case, such a structure would be undesirable. According to Prof. Mustafa Environmental impact and conflict need not be only limited to the “community at large” but may also affect groups of individuals and individuals—who deserve as much protection—in equal measure as the “community at large”, which itself is not defined. This portion of the Bill should simply be deleted, before it heads inevitably towards a Constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court. Moreover, since the courts have recognized that the environment falls within the purview of Article 21, it is clear that all persons have a duty to protect the environment and a corresponding right to question the adverse impact on environment and human health. But the Bill ignores this principle. He also had serious reservation on the fact that the Green Tribunals like other Tribunals will become a post retirement place for retired bureaucrats.

Prof Armin Rosencranz, Stanford University drew the attention to the fact that excessive reliance on Court for protection of environment is undesirable given the fact that the Supreme Court of India and the Courts have not stopped a single mega project such as Dams, mines and that the era of judicial activism got over in the year 2000 and what we have at present is an extremely conservative Supreme Court.

Ritwick Dutta, Coordinator TAI conducted the interactive session on the provisions of the Green Tribunal Bill, Geetanjoy Sahu of Tata Institute of Social Sciences presented on the experience with Green bench while Shakar Pani of Vasundhara traced the development of Environmental Courts in Indian Jurisprudence.

There was broad consensus that unless these serious shortcomings are addressed, passing the Bill in its present state will do more damage to the environment and is bound to be challanged in court The deliberations of the meeting will be given to the Ministry of Environment and Forests as well as Members of Parliament. It was also decided to have other regional level meetings on the Green Tribunal with the next one at Bangalore.