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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Supreme Court pulls up government for failure to set up green regulator -Samanwaya Rautray & Urmi A Goswami

Supreme Court pulls up government for failure to set up green regulator -Samanwaya Rautray & Urmi A Goswami

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published Published on Sep 11, 2013   modified Modified on Sep 11, 2013
-The Economic Times


NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court admonished the government for failing to set up an independent environmental regulator, which the prime minister promised to set up in 2011. The court has asked the environment ministry, which currently has all regulatory powers, to give an explanation in four weeks.

"You want to retain all power with the ministry (of environment and forests). You should think of yourself as a policy-making ministry, confine yourself to making policy. The MoEF fears that this will strip it of any discretionary powers," Justice Patnaik said in a not-soveiled dig at the ministry.

The matter was raised by amicus curiae Harish Salve who told the court the environment ministry had failed to set up a regulator despite being directed to do so in the 2011 Lafarge judgement. "No one has challenged that judgement; no one has come in for review," Salve said.

"We are of the view that under Section 3(3) of the Environment Protection Act, 1986, the central government should appoint a national regulator for appraising, projects, enforcing environmental conditions for approvals and to impose penalties on polluters," the Lafarge judgement states.

During the course of the Lafarge hearings, Attorney General GE Vahanvati told the court that the ministry would set up an independent regulator for professional appraisal of projects.

In 2011, the environment ministry circulated a draft proposal outlining the contours of the proposed regulator, the National Environment Assessment and Monitoring Authority (NEAMA), for inter-ministerial comments before putting it up for Cabinet approval.

What made the government's situation more embarrassing was the fact that in July 2011, prime minister Manmohan Singh had announced his administration's intention to establish an independent regulator.

"Even the prime minister said that he would put in place a national (green) regulator," Justice AK Patnaik, who was heading a three-judge special forest bench, observed. "Where's the regulator?" he asked Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran.

The prime minister had said that the proposed regulator "could lead to a complete change in the process of granting environmental clearances" as it would be "staffed by dedicated professionals, it will work on a full-time basis to evolve better and more objective standards of scrutiny".

Officials said changes in the ministry in mid-2011 delayed the proposal, and the situation "was further complicated by the paucity of funds". Parasaran acknowledged that the government should have implemented the judgement within six months and filed a compliance report.

The Solicitor General sought to stem off the criticism by drawing attention to the National Green Tribunal, which was set up in 2010 and "has since been functioning more vigorously".

Salve contested the government's position saying the green tribunal was an appellate body and could not frame rules and regulations the way an independent regulator could. Between 2009 and mid 2011, the environment ministry held a series of consultations to work out the structure of the proposed regulator.

This was one of the priorities listed by former environment minister Jairam Ramesh soon after he took office. Work on the proposed regulator began as early as August 2009, when the prime minister stressed on the need to set up such a body.

The proposed NEAMA as outlined in the inter-ministerial note was to be set up by a notification under Section 3.3 of the Environment Protection Act, 1986, with appropriate changes to the Environment Impact Assessment notification, 2006, and the Coastal Regulatory Zone, 2011.

The new system intended to separate the functions of the appraising and monitoring from that of approval - the NEAMA would be in charge of appraisal and monitoring, the ministry would continue to be the approval granting authority.


The Economic Times, 10 September, 2013, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/supreme-court-pulls-up-government-for-failure-to-set-up-green-regulator/articleshow/22448883.cms


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