Pune: Supreme Court appointed Justice Jawad Rahim as the National Green Tribunal’s Acting Chairperson on Tuesday.
The Apex Court on 31 January had said the NGT should constitute a division bench comprising of one expert and one judicial to hear the cases against the single bench as proposed by the Central Government which halted all the court proceedings of NGT benches including Pune bench which had only one member. The west zone Bench of Pune was not operational for the past two months.
With the appointment of Justice Rahim in the judicial experts category he shall also participate in the selection process of Judicial experts.
The Apex Court’s Bench comprising of CJI of Dipak Misra, A M Khanwilkar and Dr D Y Chandrachud direction in the petition filed by the NGT Bar Association of western zone said Justice Rahim shall now discharge his duties as an acting chairperson of the Tribunal besides selecting other judicial experts until a new chairperson has been appointed by the Tribunal, Indian Express reported.
President of NGT Bar Association, Western zone Saurabh Kulkarni said, “The Supreme Court’s decision would enable constitution of the NGT bench for western zone in Pune. There are 500 cases pending in the western zone bench of the NGT, as the operations had stopped after the SC judgment on Janaury 31.”