'More awareness needed on green tribunal'

COIMBATORE: Supreme Court lawyer, Ritwick Dutta has been a pioneer in fighting a series of complex environmental cases in the recent days including the cause of affected tribals of Niyamgiri hills in Odisha against Vedanta's mining projects.
On Saturday, speaking on the sidelines of a sensitisation workshop organised in the city, jointly by OSAI, an environment organisation and EIA Resource and Response Centre, Dutta said that the National Green Tribunal (NGT), established three years ago to deal with environmental and livelihood violations, remains inaccessible to a majority of the affected people."The government is doing nothing to propagate it as an accessible judicial platform for those who face trouble from illegal mining, quarrying, wetland reclamation, pollution, highways, dam projects etc. Lawyers, who undertake a green cause and activists focusing on livelihood issues, require sensitisation about the tribunal and its functioning," says Dutta.
Keeping in view the growing rate of environmental violations, Dutta said that all state capitals should have NGT benches. "Presently, there are benches only in Delhi, Bhopal, Chennai and Pune," he added. Despite SC directions, lack of strength is preventing the existing benches to have circuit benches within their jurisdiction. "Each bench must have at least eight judicial officers and technical officers to hold sittings in key cities of their jurisdiction,'' he said. Lack of circuit benches is causing severe inconveniences to the poor, who have to reach cities by travelling several kilometers, he said.
"Better infrastructure and enough man power can help NGT to put and end to the plundering of natural resources in the country,'' said Dutta. According to him, each existing bench of the tribunal receives at least 25 cases of environmental violation every day. Effective monitoring and intervention by the civil society can help the tribunal to dispose the cases effectively and expeditiously.
Dutta, who is on a nation-wide mission to make lawyers and green activists aware of the tribunal and its scopes, has completed a workshop in Bangalore. The next workshop will be held in Kochi on Sunday. OSAI president K Kalidas presided over the meeting held in Coimbatore.