NEW DELHI: Abhijit Prabhudesai, a Goa-based environmentalist, has travelled to Delhi six times since last December to appear before the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT’s) principal bench, which is hearing his petition on environmental concerns regarding the Mopa airport in north Goa.
His plea was being heard by NGT’s Pune bench until the tribunal started facing severe shortage of judicial members, closing it down temporarily, along with its regional benches in Pune, Bhopal, Chennai and Kolkata. Prabhudesai is among several petitioners from around the country who have exhausted their resources to pull through their cases.
Many petitioners do not have the resources to travel to Delhi, so they have been waiting indefinitely for NGT hearings to resume at regional benches. “I’m shattered financially.
Even after hearing the case so many times, acting chairperson of NGT justice UD Salvi retired before closing the matter. This means I have to keep going to Delhi,” said Prabhudesai.
On Wednesday afternoon, office-bearers, who discussed the backlog of cases, said: “NGT has not seen worse days. We have so many important environmental cases pending but there is nobody to hear them,” one said.
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