Tackling Environmental Crime Without Criminal Trials: A Critical Study Of The National Green Tribunal
- IJLLR Journal
- Feb 20
- 1 min read
Miss. Anindita Saha, Research Scholar, Faculty of Law, ICFAI University, Tripura
Dr. Zigisha Pujari, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, ICFAI University, Tripura
ABSTRACT
Crimes in India related to environment are gradually addressed through dedicated environmental adjudication rather than traditional criminal trials. The institutional formation of the National Green Tribunal under the NGT Act,2010 was envisioned to provide effective and speedy environmental justice via expert-driven in making decisions. Despite of the Tribunal’s predominantly civil jurisdiction has lead towards substantial shift in how environmental offences are visualized and addressed. The serious and major environmental harms such as industrial pollution, illegal mining, waste dumping are regularly resolved through compliance directions, compensation and restoring orders instead of proper criminal prosecution and investigations.
The doctrinal study will critically examine the implications of dealing environmental crimes without proper criminal procedure in India and analyze the statutory provisions, decisions of the judiciary and NGT’s jurisprudence. The paper claims that environmental crimes are gradually diluted into administration violations, which is weakening the accountability and deterrence. It also highlights the lacking of criminal sanctions, weak enforcement mechanism and the communal liability which may be termed as “soft accountability” in environmental governance.
The paper contends that while the National Green Tribunal has been operative in handling environmental harm, it has not properly addressed the criminal dimension of environmental offences which has normalized the repeated offenders. The study suggests a model that will strengthen harmonization of NGT and criminal justice mechanism safeguarding that serious environment related offences attract equivalent criminal consequences combined with regulatory remedy.
Keywords: Criminal Liability, Environmental Crimes, Enforcement, National Green Tribunal, India
