The Green Bench of the Supreme Court has agreed to sit on weekends and holidays in order to tackle growing pendency, reports Mint..The Green Bench is a three judge Bench of the Supreme Court which exclusively hears environment related cases. Currently, Justice JS Khehar heads the Bench and it comprises Justices Jasti Chelameswar and AK Sikri as the other two judges..On Monday, the Bench suggested that it would work on holidays and weekends and also agreed to sit for three days during the Dusherra holidays to hear mining cases pertaining to Haryana and Rajasthan..The Bench also urged the Bar to cooperate with the effort. “It must be a joint effort. Are you willing to work on weekends”, the Bench asked to which Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar replied in the positive..The Green Bench has been hearing many important cases, especially those related to mining in Goa, Karnataka, Orissa etc..Recently, Senior Advocate and currently an Additional Solicitor General PS Narasimha, who served as amicus curiae for the Green Bench for two years, in an interview with Bar & Bench had expressed his disagreement with the Supreme Court’s practice of monitoring individual cases. He had said:.“The Court needs to strive to bring about institutional efficiency, institutional integrity and institutional autonomy. And environment matters are a classic case in point. The Supreme Court is flooded with environment matters. It has single-handedly taken upon itself the entire burden. No application can be processed by the Central government without the stamp of the Supreme Court. It has reached that level because nobody can be trusted and all have decided that the existing systems are either corrupt or inefficient. This must stop.”
The Green Bench of the Supreme Court has agreed to sit on weekends and holidays in order to tackle growing pendency, reports Mint..The Green Bench is a three judge Bench of the Supreme Court which exclusively hears environment related cases. Currently, Justice JS Khehar heads the Bench and it comprises Justices Jasti Chelameswar and AK Sikri as the other two judges..On Monday, the Bench suggested that it would work on holidays and weekends and also agreed to sit for three days during the Dusherra holidays to hear mining cases pertaining to Haryana and Rajasthan..The Bench also urged the Bar to cooperate with the effort. “It must be a joint effort. Are you willing to work on weekends”, the Bench asked to which Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar replied in the positive..The Green Bench has been hearing many important cases, especially those related to mining in Goa, Karnataka, Orissa etc..Recently, Senior Advocate and currently an Additional Solicitor General PS Narasimha, who served as amicus curiae for the Green Bench for two years, in an interview with Bar & Bench had expressed his disagreement with the Supreme Court’s practice of monitoring individual cases. He had said:.“The Court needs to strive to bring about institutional efficiency, institutional integrity and institutional autonomy. And environment matters are a classic case in point. The Supreme Court is flooded with environment matters. It has single-handedly taken upon itself the entire burden. No application can be processed by the Central government without the stamp of the Supreme Court. It has reached that level because nobody can be trusted and all have decided that the existing systems are either corrupt or inefficient. This must stop.”
