On April 16,1996, a division bench of the Supreme Court (SC) comprising Justices Kuldip Singh and S Saghir Ahmed directed the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court to constitute a special division bench to hear environment-related petitions - and the nation's first green bench was born. The SC has directed this bench to meet once a week.

The constitution of the Calcutta bench was followed by another in Chennai. On September 2,1996, while passing an interim order in the Tamil Nadu tanneries case, a full bench of the SC comprising Justices Kuldip Singh, Falzan-uddin and K Venkataswami asked the chief justice of the Chennai High Court to constitute a special green bench to deal with environmenal matters - including the tanneries case - in that state.