Mind the expertise gap in NGT, Pg10

Key Highlights:

• The National Green Tribunal (NGT) was established in 2010 to combine legal and ecological expertise for environmental governance.
• An investigation revealed the NGT ruled in favor of project developers in four out of five cases between 2020 and 2025.
• Nine of 13 expert members appointed since 2016 previously held senior positions in the Environment Ministry, raising conflict of interest concerns.
• The NGT Act mandates an equal number of judicial and expert members, but expert positions are rarely filled.

Detailed Insights:

• The NGT has shown effectiveness in cases like sand-mining and river pollution, enforcing scientifically established standards, but its impact is blunted by weak implementation.
• Environmental concerns linked to development projects require specialized knowledge beyond legal interpretation, including displacement, pollution, and biodiversity harm.
• The tribunal's pool of experts is largely from the Indian Forest Service, lacking diverse inputs from scientists, economists, engineers, urban planners, and legal scholars.
• Climate change has increased the complexity of environmental governance, requiring expertise in risk assessment and adaptation planning.
• Strengthening the NGT's technical capacity requires filling vacancies and equipping it with multidisciplinary expertise for independent evaluation of scientific claims.

Key Concepts Involved:

• National Green Tribunal (NGT): A specialized body equipped to handle environmental disputes involving multidisciplinary issues.
• Environmental Governance: The regulatory processes, mechanisms, and organizations through which environmental policies and standards are enforced.
• Conflict of Interest: A situation in which a person's ability to exercise judgment is compromised by competing interests.