National Green Tribunal

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) is a specialised quasi-judicial body created by the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010, which came into force on 18 October 2010, making India the third country after Australia and New Zealand to establish a dedicated environmental court. Its creation fulfilled India's obligations under Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration (1992) and gave effect to the Supreme Court's recommendations in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India and Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action v. Union of India (1996) for specialised environmental fora. The Tribunal draws constitutional sustenance from the right to a clean environment read into Article 21, alongside the State's duties under Article 48A and the citizen's fundamental duty under Article 51A(g). It replaced the earlier National Environment Tribunal Act, 1995 and the National Environment Appellate Authority Act, 1997.

The NGT exercises jurisdiction over all civil cases involving a "substantial question relating to environment" arising from the implementation of the seven enactments listed in Schedule I of the Act — including the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981; the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; the Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991; and the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. Notably, it does not hear matters under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the Indian Forest Act, 1927, or state forest laws. The Tribunal applies the principles of sustainable development, the polluter pays principle, and the precautionary principle (Section 20), and can award relief, compensation and restitution of the damaged environment. Under Section 14, applications must be filed within six months of the cause of action. It is not bound by the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, instead following principles of natural justice. The principal bench sits in New Delhi, with zonal benches at Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai; it comprises judicial and expert members chaired by a sitting or retired Supreme Court judge or Chief Justice of a High Court.

Landmark adjudications illustrate its activist reach: the ban on diesel vehicles older than ten years in Delhi-NCR (2015), the ₹500 crore environmental compensation imposed on Volkswagen (2019) for cheat-device emissions, the ₹100 crore penalty on Sterlite/Vedanta, and orders cleaning the Yamuna and regulating Art of Living's 2016 floodplain event. Appeals from NGT orders lie directly to the Supreme Court under Section 22 within ninety days. The Supreme Court in Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sangathan v. Union of India (2012) affirmed that all environmental matters should ordinarily be routed to the NGT, while in Mantri Techzone (2019) it clarified the Tribunal's suo motu powers, later expanded in the Municipal Corporation, Greater Mumbai (2022) ruling.

For the UPSC examination, the NGT is a recurring theme in the Environment & Ecology segment of GS Paper III and Prelims, and in GS Paper II under statutory and quasi-judicial bodies. Typical question angles probe its composition, the Schedule I statutes within and outside its purview, the six-month limitation, the appeal route to the Supreme Court, and its application of the polluter-pays and precautionary principles. Prelims frequently tests the exclusion of the Wildlife Protection Act from its jurisdiction.