{"id":1366,"date":"2010-07-17T11:58:55","date_gmt":"2010-07-17T06:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greenworldinvestor.com\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2010-07-17T11:58:55","modified_gmt":"2010-07-17T06:28:55","slug":"indias-justice-system-to-expedite-environmental-cases-through-green-benches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/2010\/07\/17\/indias-justice-system-to-expedite-environmental-cases-through-green-benches\/","title":{"rendered":"India&#039;s Justice System to expedite Environmental Cases through Green Benches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>India is facing a growing backlog of environmental cases with rapid industrialization leading to disputes with traditional stakeholders.Land acquisition has become a huge problem with industries and mining interests facing <a href=\"http:\/\/greenworldinvestor.com\/2010\/07\/16\/massive-coal-plant-in-andhra-pradeshindia-faces-cancellation-due-to-protests-from-farmers-and-fishermen\/\">increasing protests from farmers and fishermen<\/a>.The government frequently gets compromised by powerful industrial lobbies,leaving India&#8217;s judiciary the only place where affected people can get some justice.Recognizing this fact India&#8217;s Chief Justice has decided to restructure the &#8220;Green Bench&#8221; to expedite the cased before it.There will be 2 benches which will deal with environmental matters,one bench will deal with\u00a0 norms while the other will focus on their implementation.The lawyers have also been warned not to delay cases through standard tactics like adjournments.<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.expressindia.com\/latest-news\/Green-cases-wont-be-adjourned-any-more\/647808\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+expressindia%2FiKgY+%28Expressindia%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\">\u2018Green cases won\u2019t be adjourned any more\u2019 &#8211; Express India<\/a><\/h3>\n<blockquote><p><span>The changes, both in the structure and method of functioning,  are important as the Green Bench is the final judicial word on a number  of critical environmental issues from mining rights, forest and national  parks conservation to hanging of billboards in public areas. It is  traditionally led by the CJI flanked by two judges of his choice. The  new Bench has the CJI and Justices Aftab Alam and KS Radhakrishnan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Henceforth, the CJI said the Bench would hear only  one case at a time. This would allow it to concentrate on the case at  hand for the entire court session, instead of having to divide time  between five to ten different environment disputes in one court hearing. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The CJI informed that a second Green Bench under  Justice Sudershan Reddy would start functioning from July 26, and would  convene every Monday. So far, the CJI\u2019s Green Bench only sat on Friday  afternoons.Dividing duties between the two Benches, the CJI  said his Bench would have the pivotal role of \u201claying down norms\u201d on  environmental issues whereas Justice Reddy\u2019s court will see to its  implementation. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>India&#8217;s Political and Business Elites Riding Roughshod over Environmental and Ethical Norms<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The cases before the Green Bench are quite varied and reflect the increasing impunity that India&#8217;s executive and legislative branches ride roughshod over India&#8217;s citizens.Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has been in the news for building massive statues in government held parks.Uttar Pradesh is one of the poorest and most backward states in India and building of these statues is a massive waste of taxpayer money.The Indian Legal System is the only way for India&#8217;s citizens to reduce the profligate wastage of scarce government resources.Mining interests are also severely degrading India&#8217;s forest and land resources in their greed to exploit India&#8217;s mineral riches.Illegal Mining done under the patronage of India&#8217;s political and industrial lobbies is quite rampant and both the courts and the government seem quite helpless to stop it.<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dancewithshadows.com\/politics\/supreme-court-slams-mayavatis-up-government-on-statues-case\/\">Supreme Court slams Mayavati\u2019s UP government on statues case &#8211; Dancewithshadows<\/a><\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>The Supreme Court has severely criticised the government of Uttar  Pradesh, led by Chief Minister Mayawati, for deciding to go ahead with  its plan to build statues of and memorials for Dalit leaders in the  state despite the court\u2019s ban and also warned the state government that  it \u201ccannot treat the court like a political party.\u201dAccording to the petitioner in the main case, the government of Uttar  Pradesh has decided to spend over Rs 2,000 crore to construct parks and  statues for Dalit leaders. The Supreme Court had taken a serious view  of the \u201chuge waste of public money.\u201dThe Uttar Pradesh government proceeded with the constructions of the  memorials in blatant violation of the undertaking it had given to the  Supreme Court on September 8, 2009 \u2013 thus committing contempt of court.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/SC-stays-mining-activities-by-Reddy-brothers-in-Andhra-Pradesh-\/articleshow\/5711489.cms\">SC stays mining activities by Reddy brothers in  Andhra Pradesh &#8211; Times of India<\/a><\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>The Supreme Court on  Monday stayed all further mining activities by the Obulapuram Mining  Corporation (OMC) owned by Karnataka minister G Janardhana Reddy and his brother  Karunakara Reddy in Andhra Pradesh.  The Supreme Court said that an expert committee headed by the Survey of India will review the mining areas and ascertain allegations of largescale encroachment of reserve forest areas allegedly  by the powerful mining lobby.  The apex court granted two weeks to the committee to file its report and said no further mining activities would  be permitted at the site until further orders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India is facing a growing backlog of environmental cases with rapid industrialization leading to disputes with traditional stakeholders.Land acquisition has become a huge problem with industries<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[1765,2243,2256,3391,3560,3629,4317],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-government","tag-green","tag-legal","tag-materials","tag-mining","tag-regulator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}