KARACHI, May 17: While the elements and factors responsible for an imbalanced environment are on the increase, the government has miserably failed to come up to the aspirations of Karachiites as far as the working of a seven-year-old environmental tribunal in the city is concerned, said people in the environmental circles.

In mid 1999, the federal government had notified the establishment of the first two environmental tribunals in the country. However, the one in Karachi, with the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan in its jurisdiction, is yet to be activated.

Citizens depressed of the deteriorating environment and its cost say: "Our drinking water is unsafe, and our factories are continuously releasing harmful by-products and discharging various types of effluents in our rivers and sea while thousands of vehicles throughout the city continuously emit smoke, but conviction of the offenders is still a far cry."

Millions of rupees have been spent so far on account of Karachi tribunal's building and limited staff during the last seven years. The tribunal has failed to get its main personnel – chairman and two members (legal and technical), posted simultaneously.

When contacted, an official of the law and justice ministry in Islamabad said that at present the posts of the tribunal’s chairman, a member (legal) and registrar were lying vacant.

He said they couldn’t fill the posts as nominations were not available from the Sindh High Court and other authorities concerned.

“We are trying to make the tribunal functional, but lack enforcement at the local level,” the official added, saying that a member on the technical side had been appointed, who would join the tribunal some time after June, 2006.

Constituted under the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act (PEPA), 1997, the environmental tribunal (ET) can take up cases of air and noise pollution, hazardous waste and oil spills, and other environmental destructions.

Investigations by Dawn showed that Justice (Retd) Syed Abdur Rehman was appointed the first chairman of the EPT, who could only hold one staff meeting of the body in December 1999.

He was followed by another chairman – a senior special judge – who held the tribunal’s second meeting in October 2000.

During the period in question, however, neither was any case referred to the EPT nor did it take any suo motu action on environmental issues.

It was only a couple of years back that a building was hired in the DHA area by the law ministry to house an establishment of 10-14 staff of the tribunal. However, the tribunal’s offices are still due to be set in a meaningful manner.

“We do often come to office, but in the absence of a real working environment and leading heads, it all appears boring,” said a staff in the ET office. The lower staff strength is also shrinking, he said.

About one and a half year back, the government appointed two persons from outside Karachi as member legal and member technical separately, but the persons did not show up.

The tribunal’s first registrar, appointed in 2001, had also been posted in the law ministry at Islamabad, it was learnt.

The second full-time chairman of the Karachi tribunal, Nabi Bux Talpur, a district and session judge of Sanghar, left the post vacant after reaching superannuation in March this year, said an official of the law ministry, adding that the Sindh High Court had been requested to send nominations for the post so it could be filled at the earliest.

Under legal provisions, the chairman of the environment tribunal can hear a case only in the presence of at least one of the two notified members.

Referring to the limping advancement in the case of the Karachi tribunal, a senior conservationist said it was difficult to know how much time the federal government would take to fill both posts – of the legal and technical members – and that of the chairman filled at a time.

But one thing was certain that the cases of violation of environment laws could be instituted almost daily in the metropolis.

The situation, however, goes in the favour of polluters, who under the rules are required to pay if they violate the provisions of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act (PEPA), 1997, the conservationist remarked.