The National Green Tribunal and the pollution boards

Prelims and MainsCurrent affairs on this: Courts, tribunals and environmental jurisprudence

Environmental cases in India reach two kinds of body. The pollution control boards enforce: the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), created by the Water Act of 1974, sets standards and coordinates; the State boards issue the consents every polluting unit needs, monitor, and can close a unit. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) adjudicates: set up by the NGT Act, 2010 as a specialised court with judicial and expert members, it hears disputes under seven environmental laws, can award compensation and restoration, and must apply sustainable development, the precautionary principle and polluter pays. It sits in Delhi with zonal benches at Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai; appeals go straight to the Supreme Court. The Wildlife (Protection) Act and the Forest Rights Act are outside its list, so a wildlife dispute goes to the High Courts.

Who does what in environmental law

Body	Created by	Does	Does not
Central Pollution Control Board	Water Act, 1974	sets standards, coordinates States, runs monitoring networks	does not license units (the State boards do)
State Pollution Control Boards	Water Act, 1974	consent to establish and operate, inspection, closure orders, public hearings under the EIA Notification	cannot award compensation
National Green Tribunal	NGT Act, 2010	adjudicates under seven laws, compensation and restoration, six month target, suo motu	no jurisdiction over the Wildlife Act or the Forest Rights Act; appeal only to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court	Constitution, Article 32	the doctrines: absolute liability, polluter pays, precaution, public trust; continuing mandamus in Godavarman	not a first instance forum for ordinary pollution cases

Boards enforce, the tribunal adjudicates, the Supreme Court sets doctrine; wildlife and forest rights bypass the tribunal.Source: Water Act, 1974; NGT Act, 2010, Schedule I

The seven laws in the NGT's schedule: the Water Act 1974, the Water Cess Act 1977, the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, the Air Act 1981, the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, the Public Liability Insurance Act 1991 and the Biological Diversity Act 2002.
The tribunal is not bound by the Code of Civil Procedure and follows natural justice; it must try to dispose of a case within six months; it can take up matters on its own on the basis of a news report, a power the Supreme Court upheld in 2021.
Boards: consent to establish before construction, consent to operate before running, both renewable; the CPCB sets the National Ambient Air Quality Standards and effluent standards; the boards' weakness is staffing and political control, which every committee since 1984 has noted.
The Supreme Court remains the source of the doctrines the tribunal applies: absolute liability (Oleum gas leak, 1987), polluter pays and the precautionary principle (Vellore, 1996), public trust doctrine (Span Motels, 1997), which came in the Kamal Nath case alongside intergenerational equity, and the Godavarman forest orders since 1996. None of them came from Parliament: the Court built them case by case.
Recent friction: the tribunal's environmental compensation orders on States and cities, its suo motu practice, and the Supreme Court's 2024 remarks that the tribunal must give reasons and hear parties before penalising.

Mains: The NGT gave India a fast forum but not fast enforcement: its orders land on the same understaffed State boards whose failures brought the case, so the tribunal's reach ends where the boards' capacity does.

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2018: how the National Green Tribunal differs from the Central Pollution Control Board

Further reading: The National Green Tribunal Bill, 2009 (PRS India)