Under pressure from the Supreme Court,the government has now promised to appoint an expert on ad hoc basis to the National Green Tribunal for a period of six months. This,it assures,will be done within four weeks.
The matter came up before a Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly,which was hearing an appeal filed by the government against a 2005 Delhi HC judgment directing it to offer salary and service benefits of a sitting SC judge to the chairperson of National Environmental Appellate Authority NEAA.
But during the hearing,the court discovered that the NEAA was extinct,and its successor National Green Tribunal NGT was yet to become functional. The court found that the NGT had still not found an expert member who would supplement the judicial member with crucial technical know-how on the Bench. A total of 10 expert members are supposed to be appointed to the tribunal. The learned Additional Solicitor General stated that an Expert Member will be appointed on an ad-hoc basis within a period of four weeks and with that the Bench of the Tribunal will become functional, SC recorded ASG Indira Jaisings assurance.