Earlier, environment issues were not so complex: Justice Swatanter Kumar

Lawyers take selfies with Justice Swatanter Kumar in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Express Photo: Praveen Khanna)

Laxmi Narayan stood on the lawn behind a row of lawyers in black coats, peering over their shoulders towards the makeshift stage. Every weekday, he has shown up at Faridkot House at 8.30 am, a whole hour before he needs to report for duty.

“Saab das baje aate hain,” he said, “he is very disciplined. If not 10, he is in even by 9.30 am and he stays back as late at 8 in the night, often reading or writing.” Narayan retrieves his white and green uniform, places the white turban on his head and busies himself sorting files and pinning the cause lists to notice boards.

Narayan is a court usher. There are 14 ushers at the National Green Tribunal (NGT), who form part of the “NGT family” that outgoing chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar thanked on Tuesday for their “cooperation and hard work”.

Justice Kumar retired from the post after completing a five-year tenure. It was on December 20, 2012, that he was tasked with the responsibility of “effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection and conservation of forests and other natural resources”.

On Tuesday, a full bench reference was organised in court number 1, where he spent most of his time, to mark the occasion. Justice Kumar specifically referred to the ushers in his farewell speech, reminiscing over the walk from his chambers to the courtroom past the garden each morning. “Most of the time my usher could never guess which path I would take. He would often have to run to reach the door of the courtroom before me,” he laughed in the presence of lawyers, senior colleagues and the seven remaining members who will now make up the NGT across the country until vacancies are filled.

During his tenure as NGT chairperson, the bench headed by Justice Kumar banned 10-year-old diesel and 15-year-old petrol vehicles from plying on roads, passed a slew of directions for rejuvenation of the Ganga and Yamuna, and banned plastic use in Delhi, Haridwar and Punjab. Recently, the bench held Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation “responsible” for damage caused to the Yamuna floodplains due to a three-day festival but imposed no additional environmental compensation on them. His last judgment, he said, will be delivered on Wednesday in the air pollution case.

“Unlike today, environmental cases at that time neither involved such complex questions of law nor were they contested with such vehemence. Even the regulatory authorities were not so effective in enforcement of environmental laws. The obvious reason could be that the environment had not degraded to the present limits and threat to public health was not of the present magnitude,” Justice Kumar said in his speech.

Yet, with larger threats to the environment, the NGT appears to be shrinking, evidence of which was on stage on Tuesday. Only the principal bench and the central bench have a judicial and expert member each, while Chennai, Pune and Kolkata benches survive with only one judicial member for now. The Centre even passed a notification allowing the chairperson to “constitute a single-member bench” in “exceptional circumstances”.

However, Justice Kumar did not appear to be alarmed by the government’s slow approach in filling vacancies, terming it an “interim” measure. “I was told by the ministry (of environment) that it will expedite the process,” he said, excusing himself to pose for a photograph with lawyers on the lawn.

A group of lawyers rushed over to hand him bouquets, jumping over a trimmed hedge. “Aise greenery ke upar chad sakte hain, kya?” he said.