Stay on former chief secy’s appointment to green panel

The petitioner sought to quash the December 12 notification of the appointment, and a direction to call for the relevant records.
Madras High Court (File Photo| PTI)
Madras High Court (File Photo| PTI)

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday ordered an interim stay on the appointment of former Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan as an expert member of the southern bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The first bench of the court, comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, passed the directions on a plea moved by Poovulagin Nanbargal, an environmental conservation group.

The petitioner, G Sundarrajan, of Poovulagin Nanbargal, said the NGT Act mandates that a person must have 15 years of administrative experience, including five years of dealing with environmental matters in the Central or State government or in a reputed national or State-level institution. But the Cabinet’s Appointments Committee approved the proposal to appoint Girija Vaidyanathan though she didn’t have five years of experience in dealing with environmental matters, Radhakrishnan, the petitioner’s counsel, contended. The petitioner sought to quash the December 12 notification of the appointment, and a direction to call for the relevant records.

Girija Vaidyanathan belongs to the 1981 batch of the Indian Administrative Services. She is a postgraduate in physics and played a key role in formulating the rules of the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. During the hearing on Friday, the counsel for the Central government said Girija Vaidyanathan held various administrative positions that involved dealing with environment-related issues. The counsel also submitted that she would assume charge on April 19.

However, the bench refused to accept these submissions and orally observed that the former Chief Secretary did possess administrative experience, but not five years of experience in dealing with environmental issues. The bench stressed that she had only three years of experience in dealing with environmental matters.

“We are not happy with the qualifications of the person who has been appointed as the expert member of the tribunal,” the bench observed. “...as she prima facie does not seem to satisfy the fiveyears experience criteria prescribed in Section 5(2)(b) of the NGT Act, there will be a stay on the third respondent’s (the former Chief secretary) appointment until the disposal of the plea,” it added. The bench adjourned the plea for further submissions on April 19.

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