Amidst a series of cases relating to environment reaching the courtrooms, the supreme court today prodded the centre for setting up a green regulator.

The apex court's forest bench of chief justice S H Kapadia and justices K S Panicker Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar while hearing the matter of Lafarge cement company’s disputed limestone mining in Meghalaya for its cement plant in Bangladesh, asked the attorney general Goolam E Vahanvati “Why not have a regulatory board at state and centre level for environment clearance and related issues? Consider that.”  Vahanvati responded there existed enough mechanism to deal with it already but assured the bench that the instructions would be taken down and deliberated with the concerned ministries.

In view of manifold increase in number of such cases, there are currently two dedicated “forest bench” which have been hearing cases on forest, wildlife and marine life. While the first one has been into being for more than a decade now, the second such bench was created in July last year. While one of them looks into the norms and policies of the cases, the other looks into matters relating to implementation of directives passed by it.