Who Should Be Made a Respondent in an NGT Case?

Make a respondent of everyone the tribunal will need to bind or direct: the person or company causing the harm, the authority whose permission or failure is in question, and the authority that will have to inspect, enforce or report. In most pollution cases that means the polluter, the State Pollution Control Board, the CPCB, the District Magistrate and, depending on the problem, the local body, the SEIAA, the groundwater authority or the forest department. Leave out anyone who has no role. Too few respondents and the order binds nobody useful; too many and the case slows down.

Choosing respondents looks like a formality. It is not. A missing party can mean an order that cannot be enforced, and a wrongly described company can mean months of failed service. This guide sets out the test, the usual respondents by type of case, how to describe each one correctly, and how to add or drop a party later. It sits within our guide on how to file a case in the NGT.

If you are on the other side, named as a respondent and wondering what to do, skip to the section near the end.

The essentials

Who should be made a respondent in an NGT case?

Ask two questions about every prayer in your application. Whom must this order bind? Who will have to carry it out? The answers are your respondents. If you want a stone crusher closed, the crusher's owner must be bound, and the State Board must be directed to enforce closure. If you want the site inspected, the authorities who will sit on the committee should be parties. If you want compensation, the person who will pay must be a respondent.

Section 19 frees the NGT from the Code of Civil Procedure but requires it to follow natural justice, and the most basic rule of natural justice is that nobody is condemned unheard. The tribunal will not order a company to stop work, pay compensation or remove a structure unless that company has been made a party and served. Leave out the polluter and the best you will get is a direction to the board to 'look into it'.

Equally, there is no prize for length. A respondent with no role adds a notice, a reply and often an adjournment.

Necessary parties and proper parties

Civil law has long distinguished two kinds of party, and the distinction is a useful working guide in the NGT even though the CPC does not bind it. A necessary party is one without whom no effective order can be passed: the polluter, and the authority whose permission is under challenge. A proper party is one whose presence helps the tribunal decide fully, though an order could be passed without it: the CPCB, for instance, in a local case where the State Board is already on record.

Always include necessary parties. Include proper parties when they will genuinely contribute, such as a body that holds key records or will likely be on the inspection committee. Leave out everyone else. In applications reviewed by Advocate B.K. Singh, the commonest correction is not adding a missing party but removing three or four that add nothing, usually central ministries named because they sound important.

Usual respondents for common NGT cases

Treat this as a starting point. The right list depends on the prayers, and states assign duties differently.

Naming the polluter correctly: company, firm, proprietor, society or builder

Use the exact legal name. A company is named as registered, for example 'XYZ Chemicals Private Limited, through its Managing Director', at its registered office, with the plant address added. The name and registered office can be checked on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs records. A partnership firm is named with its partners; a proprietorship by the proprietor's name 'trading as' the business name. A registered society or RWA is named through its president or secretary.

Trade names on signboards are often not legal entities. 'Shiv Stone Crusher' may belong to a company, a partnership or an individual, and a notice to the signboard may come back unserved. The consent order, the EC letter or an RTI reply from the board usually gives the correct name of the consent holder. Use it.

Where land is leased, consider naming both the operator and the landowner, especially if you seek restoration of the land. For a housing project, name the developer and, where the society has taken over the STP or common areas, the society too. Your guide to these disputes is our page on builder environmental violations.

Naming government bodies: by office, not by officer

Describe each authority by the office that represents it: the State Pollution Control Board through its Member Secretary; the CPCB through its Member Secretary; the municipal corporation through its Commissioner; the State of Uttar Pradesh through the Principal Secretary of the relevant department; the Union of India through the Secretary, MoEFCC; the District Magistrate of a named district. Officers transfer; the designation stays and the order binds whoever holds it.

Give the official address of the head office, and the regional office where that is the one dealing with your site. Many State Boards act through regional offices, and naming the regional officer in addition can speed up the factual reply. For a state government, choose the department that actually holds the duty rather than the Chief Secretary for everything.

The same applies to autonomous bodies: the SEIAA through its Member Secretary, the industrial development corporation through its Managing Director, the development authority through its Vice Chairman. If you are unsure of the right designation, the authority's own letters to you usually show it.

Should I name officers personally?

Almost never. An officer is named in a personal capacity only where you allege personal wrongdoing, such as an officer who issued a consent knowing the unit was in a prohibited area, and you can support that with documents. Without that, naming individuals by name reads as an attempt to intimidate, invites a personal reply defending their conduct and can draw costs.

The tribunal has its own ways of fixing responsibility on officials: it can direct an authority to identify the officers responsible for a lapse, or call for an explanation. Let it. Your application is stronger when it attacks the failure, not the person.

Why adding every ministry hurts your case

It is tempting to name the MoEFCC, the Ministry of Jal Shakti, the Chief Secretary, the Police Commissioner and three central agencies 'to be safe'. Each one has to be served, each will usually seek time to reply, and several will file a short reply saying the matter does not concern them. Meanwhile the first effective hearing slips by a date or two.

A local problem, such as one dyeing unit, one dump site or one illegal borewell, rarely needs any central ministry. The CPCB is the usual central body in pollution cases, because it often sits on joint committees. The MoEFCC is needed where it granted a clearance, where a central policy is challenged, or where the tribunal is likely to want a national-level response. Name central bodies only when you can explain, in a sentence, what the tribunal would order them to do.

When the authority is also the polluter

Sometimes the body causing the harm is a public one: a municipal STP that discharges untreated sewage, a council running an unlined dump, a public works department felling trees for a road. Name it twice over in effect: once as the party whose conduct must change, and again through the state department that funds or controls it, because an order against a council with no budget or land rarely gets carried out.

Keep the State Board on record in these cases. It regulates public bodies as well as private ones, and the tribunal will want to know why the board has not acted against a fellow government body. If the authority claims that another department holds the duty, the tribunal can settle that between them, provided both are before it.

Respondents in an appeal under section 16

In an appeal, the authority that passed the order is a respondent, along with any party who benefits from the order. When a resident appeals an environmental clearance, the respondents are the authority that granted it (SEIAA or MoEFCC), the project proponent, and usually the State Board. When an industry appeals a closure direction under Water Act section 33B or Air Act section 31B, the State Board is the main respondent, and a complainant who triggered the direction may also be added if the appeal touches their interest.

Leaving out the project proponent in an EC appeal is a serious mistake: the tribunal cannot quash a clearance behind the back of the company that holds it. Where the order was passed by an appellate authority under Water Act section 28 or Air Act section 31, name that authority and the board whose order it decided.

Respondents in a claim for compensation

A claim for compensation under section 15 needs a respondent who can pay: the person or company whose activity caused the loss. Where the damage came from an accident, section 17 makes the person responsible liable on a no-fault basis, so you do not have to prove negligence, but you still have to name the right entity, which may be the owner or operator rather than a contractor on site.

Add the State Board and the DM where you also want the site assessed or the damage quantified, since the tribunal often asks them to verify losses. Where hazardous substances are involved, the Public Liability Insurance Act 1991 may also be relevant, and it is worth taking advice on whether anyone else needs to be brought in. Our page on compensation for pollution damage explains the proof needed.

What to collect for each respondent before filing

How to build your list of respondents

Work from the prayers outward. This keeps the list complete without padding it.

Adding or deleting a respondent after filing

If you discover a missing party, file a miscellaneous application to implead it, explaining why its presence is needed and attaching an amended memo of parties. The tribunal may also add a party on its own when it sees one is needed, for example when the board's reply reveals that the land belongs to a different owner. Expect at least one extra date for notice and reply.

To drop a party, apply for deletion, or simply tell the bench at a hearing that no relief is sought against it. Third parties can also ask to be added, as interveners or additional respondents, if the outcome affects them: a neighbouring village drawing from the same canal, or a purchaser of flats in the project. Our guide to objections to a joint committee report explains why being on record matters at the report stage too.

If you have been named as a respondent

Do not ignore the notice. The tribunal can proceed in your absence, and directions passed without your side on record are hard to undo. Note the next date, collect your consent orders, EC, compliance reports, sample results and correspondence with the board, and file a reply within the time given.

If you have been wrongly named, for example because you sold the unit or the land years ago, say so with documents and ask to be deleted. If you are correctly named, a factual, documented reply serves you far better than a general denial. Our guide on defending an NGT case filed against your industry covers the reply, the inspection and the hearings.

Common mistakes in the array of parties

• Signboard names. Suing a trade name that is not a legal entity, so service fails.
• Old addresses. A unit that moved its registered office two years ago never receives notice.
• Missing the permission-giver. Challenging a consent or EC without naming the authority that granted it.
• Missing the holder. Challenging an EC without naming the project proponent who holds it.
• Officers by name. Naming individuals without any allegation of personal wrongdoing.
• Ministries as decoration. Adding central bodies against whom no prayer runs.
• Forgetting the landowner. Seeking restoration of land without making its owner a party.

Before you finalise the memo of parties

Where to read next

Once the parties are settled, our guide on drafting an NGT Original Application covers facts, grounds and prayer. If the harm began long ago, read about continuing cause of action in NGT cases. Where the main respondent is an inactive authority, see NGT cases against a municipality or authority that will not act.

For help settling the parties and filing, our NGT case filing team works at all benches, and our page on the pollution control board covers dealings with the board itself.