The Supreme Court on Tuesday continued hearing a batch of petitions on the issue whether the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has jurisdiction under the provisions of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 (NGT Act) to initiate suo motu proceedings based on a letter or a newspaper report.
The matter is being adjudicated upon by a Bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Hrishikesh Roy, and CT Ravikumar and it has been made clear that the Bench would only examine the legal issue in consideration and would not delve into the merits of the individual cases.
The cases being adjudicated upon are:
1. An appeal filed by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai against an order of the NGT on waste disposal passed on the basis of an article published in ‘The Quint’.
2. Batch of appeals arising from an order passed by the NGT on the basis of a letter representation reducing the minimum distance rule for quarries in Kerala as 50 meters from 200 meters from residential units. The Kerala High Court had held that NGT has suo motu jurisdiction; however it limited the operation of the order to new quarries and allowed existing quarries to operate as per earlier distance limit till the term of their license.