NATIONAL GREEN TRIBUNAL OF INDIA AND ENVIRONMENTSAL JUSTICE

Abstract

Improving the environmental rule of law, access to justice and environmental dispute resolution is essential for achieving the UN‘s 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG Goal 16—‗to provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels‘, according to Pring and Pring (2016). To accomplish this goal, establishing specialised courts and tribunals dealing exclusively with environmental matters is becoming essential. All over the world, more than 1200 environmental courts and tribunals are functioning in various countries, and more such courts have been planned for the future, as discussed by Pring and Pring (2016). As far as India is concerned, the need for establishing environmental courts in India arose in different circumstances and in different times. In the cases of M.C. Mehta Vs. Union of India (AIR 1987 SC 965), Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action Vs. Union of India (1996 3 SCC 212) and A.P. Pollution Control Board Vs. Professor M.V. Nayudu (1992 2 SCC 718), the Indian Supreme Court (orders of 1986, 1996, 2001) observed that as environmental cases frequently involve assessment of scientific data, setting up environmental courts on a regional basis with a legally qualified judge and two experts would help speed the judicial process.