Guwahati: The National Green Tribunal has directed the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change to defer the proposed meeting of a three-member expert panel on the Lower Subansiri dam with Assam government officials and activists here on Thursday because a petition, filed by the Assam Public Works, an NGO, challenging the constitution of the expert committee, is pending before the tribunal.

The order was passed by the principal bench of the tribunal in New Delhi comprising Justice Jawad Rahim (judicial member) and Nagin Nanda (expert member) on Monday. The principal bench fixed Thursday as the next date for hearing of this case.

The case related to the Lower Subansiri hydroelectric project of the NHPC was being heard by the eastern zone bench of the tribunal in Calcutta, but it was transferred to the tribunal's principal bench in New Delhi on February 8 because of the absence of the expert member at the eastern zone bench for the past two months. An NGT bench must comprise at least one judicial member and an expert member.

The expert committee was constituted by the ministry in November in pursuance of an October 16, 2017, order of the eastern zone bench for resolving issues concerning the 2,000MW project.

The NGO and Tularam Gogoi, a Guwahati-based lawyer and former vice-president of AASU, argued that the members of the expert committee - Prabhas Pande, I.D. Gupta and P.M. Scott - or their organisations had backed the NHPC's positions on the project in the past and therefore they have "bias and conflict of interest which will prejudice the decision-making".

The NGO's president Aabhijeet Sharma said the tribunal's principal bench had agreed with their submission that since the constitution of the expert committee has been challenged, it would not be proper for the committee to conduct its business and directed that the meeting scheduled on Thursday should be deferred on this ground.