SC hands over its green watchdog committee to Environment Ministry

• The Central Empowered Committee (CEC) will now report to the Environment Ministry which will nominate its members and have the final say on the merit of its recommendations.

The Central Empowered Committee (CEC)

• It was set up by the Supreme Court to flag cases of official non-compliance with its orders related to conservation
• Set up in 2002, and reconstituted in 2008
• The CEC has “rendered yeoman services to the cause of the environment.”
• It has filed thousands of reports on issues referred to it by the apex court that have shaped the discourse around environment policy.
  • These include compensatory afforestation, net present value of forests, Kudremukh mining, Aravali forests and Bellary mining.
  • In 2006, a CEC report resulted in a month’s simple imprisonment of a former Maharashtra minister.
  • serving the Forest Secretary for permitting wood mills to operate in violation of the SC’s order.
  • Most recently, the CEC’s recommendation to cancel the double-tracking of a railway line from Castle Rock in Karnataka to Kulem in Goa was accepted by the SC this May.
• In August , the SC permitted the ministry to proceed further with the constitution of the CEC “as a permanent body would be in the interest of all the stakeholders.” the ministry issued the notification.
• The notification, diluted the CEC’s autonomy on four key counts:
  • the committee will report to the ministry, instead of the SC
  • the ministry will pick all the members and the SC will have no role in the process
  • the ministry, and not the court, will fund the committee;
  • the provision of having two NGOs in the committee has been done away with.
• Now anyone considered an “expert” can be included as a member.
• The notification makes it clear that “the Committee shall function under the administrative control of the Central Government in the Ministry of Environment”.
• “In case any suggestion or recommendation of the Central Empowered Committee is not acceptable to the State or Central Government.
• The Government shall give reasons in writing for not accepting the same and such decision of the Central Government shall be final,”.
• It does seem that the government has been successful in reducing the role and influence of the SC.

Prelims Takeaway

• The Central Empowered Committee (CEC)
• Environment Ministry