Appointment of respondent as an Expert Member of National Green Tribunal upheld, considering the fact that she meets statutory eligibility criteria of experience

Madras High Court recently upheld the appointment of Girja Vaidyanathan as an expert member of the Green Tribunal, for having requisite qualification as prescribed by National Green Tribunals Act, 2010.

The appointment of an expert member was challenged on the grounds of not having statutory eligibility criteria to be appointed as an expert member as well as questioning procedure adopted for an appointment.

The statutory provision dealing with qualifications for appointment of the expert member is couched in a negative sense, implying that no person shall be qualified as an expert member, unless he has administrative experience of fifteen years including experience of five years in dealing with environmental matters in the Central or a State Government or a reputed National or State level institution.

Appointee found to have nine months' experience heading the Environment and Forest Department and 19 months experience as Chairman of the State Pollution Control Board. Two and half years spent by appointment as Secretary in the Department of Health and Family Welfare together with the nearly 28 months. She appears to have covered almost the entirety of the five years of requisite experience.

As a consequence, it cannot be said with any element of certainty that the negative mandate of Section 5(2) of the Act would be attracted to hold that the petitioner is not qualified to be an expert member.

Sanjib Banerjee CJ concluded that Girja Vaidyanathan cannot be held as ineligible to be appointed as the expert member on any Bench of the National Green Tribunal.

Appearing Counsel/s : M.Radhakrishnan, R.R.sankaranarayanan, M.Santhanaraman

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