Let’s start with why the NGT was set up. The earliest call for environmental courts came from the Supreme Court (SC) in the case of AP Pollution vs Nayudu decided on 1 December 2000. In this judgment, the SC had requested the Law Commission of India to study the possibility of setting up special ‘environmental courts’ to tackle complex environmental disputes. It is important to note that the SC and the subsequent report of the 17th Law Commission took care to use the term ‘courts’ and not ‘tribunals’. This is an important difference in the context of the Indian Constitution. In its report, the Law Commission had called for establishing environmental courts under Article 247 of the Constitution, which permits Parliament to create additional courts. ‘Tribunals’, on the other hand, are established under Article 323A or Article 323B of the Constitution. Now, Articles 323A and 323B were inserted in 1976 via the 42nd Constitutional Amendment.