Supreme Court Questions 'Mechanical' Orders By NGT
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2022-07-05 08:18:52
About the Author
While
hearing an appeal against the Rs 40cr penalty imposed by the National Green
Tribunal (NGT) on a Ghaziabad-based builder for carrying out construction
without obtaining the necessary environmental clearances on the recommendation
of a committee, the Supreme Court came down heavily on the NGT for passing "mechanical
and pre-drafted" orders and relying on the reports of such committees despite
Supreme Court guidelines prohibiting so. The apex court stayed the collection
of the penalty and said it was extremely "unhappy" at the state of affairs in
the NGT, will look into it and pass corrective orders.
The Supreme
Court bench that passed the above order comprised of Justices Surya Kant and JB
Pardiwala. The NGT is headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Adarsh K
Goel. An element of controversy has crept into the instant order as Justice
Goel, during his tenure as a Supreme Court judge, had vehemently opposed Justice
Surya Kant's appointment as the chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh HC from
his then position as a judge in the Punjab & Haryana HC. But his objections
were overruled and Justice Kant was made the CJ of Himachal Pradesh HC. Is this
a case of one judge getting back at another judge?
There are
several things which rule this out. For one, the Supreme Court bench that
passed the order against the NGT orders includes Justice Pardiwala so Justice
Surya Kant was not acting alone. Then, Supreme Court has issued guidelines
asking the NGT not to blindly follow the recommendations of committees which
the NGT ignored while issuing the order imposing penalty based solely on the
recommendation of the committee. The Supreme Court order criticizing the NGT
for 'mechanical' orders thus seems genuine.
However, to
ensure that everything is fair, the apex court must ensure that conflict of
interest is avoided in allotting cases to benches. Supreme Court judges are not
expected to bear past grudges in mind when deciding on cases and there is no
need to impute motives. Maybe another bench would have given a similar ruling
in the instant case. But it is best to avoid even a whiff of conflict of
interest when allocating cases.
