How-To Guide · Environmental Law

How to File a Case in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) (2026)

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

If pollution, a tree felling, a wrongly granted clearance or any other environmental harm affects you, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) is usually the place to take it. Filing there is not like filing an ordinary civil suit: you choose between an application and an appeal, use a set form, pay a fixed fee, file at the right bench, and act inside a strict time limit. Get those basics right and the NGT is faster and more flexible than a regular court. This guide walks through how to file a case in the NGT step by step: which route to use, the form and fee, where to file, the documents, and the clock you cannot miss. For the jurisdiction and principles behind these rules, see the companion guide on how the NGT works. Last verified October 2026.

01First, choose the right route

The NGT Act 2010 gives three ways in, and the first task is to pick the one that fits your grievance, because each has its own form and time limit.

If you are challenging a specific government or regulator order, you file an appeal. If you are raising an environmental harm as a fresh dispute, you file an original application. If you want money or restoration for damage done, you file a relief and compensation claim. Picking the wrong route is the most common reason a genuine case is thrown out. For what the NGT can and cannot decide, see how the National Green Tribunal works.

02Check the time limit

The NGT treats its Act as a self-contained code and reads limitation strictly, so confirm you are in time before anything else.

• Original application (Section 14): within 6 months of the cause of action, extendable by up to 60 days for sufficient cause.
• Relief and compensation (Section 15): within 5 years of the cause of action.
• Appeal (Section 16): within 30 days of the date the order was communicated to you, extendable by up to 60 days, so the outer limit is 90 days.

Match your grievance to the right section, then confirm you are inside its time limit. The NGT has thrown out real cases simply because they were filed late or under the wrong heading.

For an appeal against an environmental clearance, the date of communication can itself be disputed, for example whether uploading the clearance on a website counts as communication, so note every relevant date carefully.

03Which bench to file at

The NGT sits as a Principal Bench in New Delhi, with zonal benches at Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai, and it also holds circuit sittings in other cities from time to time. You file at the bench that has territorial jurisdiction over the area where the cause of action arose, meaning where the environmental harm or the challenged project is located.

Check the current bench and its territorial allocation on the NGT website before you file, because the jurisdiction of each zonal bench is mapped to a set of States and Union Territories, and circuit arrangements change.

04The form, fee and documents

Under the NGT (Practices and Procedure) Rules 2011, an application under Section 18 is made in Form I, and a claim for relief and compensation is made in Form II. An appeal has its own prescribed form. The application states the parties, the facts, the substantial question relating to the environment, and the relief you seek.

On fees, the general position is a fee of Rs 1,000 where no compensation is claimed, and where you claim compensation, 1 percent of the amount claimed, subject to a minimum of Rs 1,000. Confirm the current fee schedule on the NGT website before paying. Attach:

• The documents you rely on, such as the clearance, the order challenged, photographs, reports or correspondence.
• A supporting affidavit verifying the facts.
• Proof of the fee paid.
• The required number of copies of the full set, as the Rules and the bench direct.

05How to file

You can file in more than one way:

• In person or through an advocate or authorised representative, at the filing counter of the bench.
• By registered post addressed to the Registrar of the bench.
• Through the e-filing option on the NGT website, where the fee can be paid online, including through the Bharatkosh payment system.

You do not always need a lawyer, and public-spirited applications are common, but for a contested matter with technical evidence, an environmental lawyer helps. Keep the filing receipt and the diary or case number the Registry gives you, because every later step runs off it.

06After you file

Once filed, the matter is numbered and listed. The NGT is not bound by the strict rules of the Code of Civil Procedure or the Evidence Act, so it can move quickly, issue notice to the other side, call for expert or committee reports, and order site inspections. It can grant interim directions early, for example to stop an activity while the case is heard.

An appeal from an NGT order lies to the Supreme Court. For the appellate route, the principles the NGT applies, and the limitation detail, see how the National Green Tribunal works. If you are challenging an environmental clearance specifically, the grounds and process are set out in environmental clearance disputes.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

An environmental dispute rarely stays in one place. It can move from the NGT to the Supreme Court, and interim orders can land at short notice, so the practical problem after filing is keeping track. Claw tracks NGT and environmental appeal matters across 9,102 courts, benches and forums, with alerts when a new order is passed or a hearing is listed, so you can follow an application or appeal by the name of a party or advocate and never miss a date. You can also search 30 crore+ judgments, with Supreme Court decisions from 1950 and High Court decisions from 1990, returning results in under 5 seconds, to see how the NGT and the courts have applied Sections 14, 15 and 16 to facts like yours. Use a case search across Indian courts by party name to research the field before you file. Claw does not use your searches or documents to train its AI models. A clean search means nothing was found on the forums covered on the date searched under the names you used, and this is general information, not legal advice.

08Sources and further reading

• National Green Tribunal (benches, forms, rules, e-filing and cause lists): greentribunal.gov.in
• India Code (National Green Tribunal Act 2010): indiacode.nic.in
• Bharatkosh (online payment of court fee): bharatkosh.gov.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Forms, fees and bench jurisdictions change, so check the current position on the NGT website and take advice from an environmental lawyer before you file.

09Frequently asked questions