Green tribunal finally gets office space

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Centre to allot the entire 36,000 square feet space available in the Capital's Faridkot House to the National Green Tribunal within 15 days and make it fully functional by appointing a chairman and members by September 15. This means, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) headed by former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and Press Council of India (PCI) headed by Justice Markandey Katju will have to vacate the space occupied in Faridkot House. A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya directed the government to allot alternative space for other tribunals and offices functioning from Faridkot House. If the urban development ministry had a lot to answer over the long delay in providing office space and infrastructure to NGT and residential accommodation to its chairman and members, the ministry of environment and forests faced questions from the court over the delay in approving Justice R V Raveendran's name as the chairman and filling vacant posts of members. Solicitor general R F Nariman blamed the delay on red-tape but the bench was critical of the Centre's approach towards the tribunals. Terming NGT as the most important tribunal, it asked the government why it was setting up tribunals and asking the judiciary to nominate retired judges to head them when it did not have the wherewithal to provide basic requirements. The court wanted to examine the veracity of space crunch pleaded by the Centre for the delay in providing accommodation to NGT chairman and members after the urban development ministry said it had no spare official flats/bungalows for the three expert members and four judicial members of the tribunal. Refusing to buy the Centre's excuses, the bench directed the ministry to furnish within two months a "complete list of houses/flats and other accommodation being occupied by political parties/individuals and non-political persons beyond the tenure of their appointments". On the Centre's proposal to expand NGT by appointing six expert members and four judicial members, the bench said, "In our view, the green tribunal is the most important quasi-judicial body in the country. For chairmen and members of many other tribunals, houses are earmarked. If this is the attitude of the government, how can you persuade judges to join these tribunals?" Nariman said 19,000 square feet space in Faridkot House would be available to NGT after NHRC shifted to its own building by the year-end. But the bench directed the ministry to pass orders within a fortnight allocating the entire Faridkot House to NGT. The bench said, "This institution must have space to expand... NGT is an important statutory tribunal, the functioning of which will impact the country from north to south, east to west." Press Council of India, through senior advocate P H Parekh, pleaded against eviction and informed the court that the office space in Faridkot House was allotted to it on November 25, 2011, within two months of Justice Katju becoming its chairperson. The bench directed the ministry to allot alternative space to PCI, saying that compared to the media regulator, the green tribunal needed the space much more.