Coming down heavily on the Tree Authority of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for failing to produce the register containing minutes of the meeting held by the authority, Bombay high court on
Coming down heavily on the Tree Authority of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for failing to produce the register containing minutes of the meeting held by the authority, Bombay high court on Tuesday directed the secretary of municipal corporation to appear before the court along with minutes of the meeting on Wednesday.
A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Amjad Sayed issued this direction while hearing a PIL filed by Raghunath Kottary through advocate Pandurang Pol, alleging rampant destruction of trees at different plots of Dindoshi village by a builder. The petitioner alleged that the Tree Authority was not following any procedure and as a result, trees were being felled illegally all over Mumbai and Dindoshi was just an example. The petitioner said he spoke about Dindoshi because he lives in that area and has seen trucks carrying pieces of the trees.
The bench was of the view that it could be proved by minutes of the meeting if the Tree Authority was following procedure prescribed under law or not and hence, demanded the minutes immediately. The petitioner sought direction to BMC and the Tree Authority for effective implementation of provisions of the “Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Reservation of Trees Act, 1975”. The petitioner alleged that the Tree Authority, in collusion with the builders’ lobby, had failed to take any action to protect the environment in utter disregard of provisions of the Act.
The petitioner said that the Act was amended in 1996 for effective implementation of the main object of regulating felling of trees and planting an adequate number of new trees in urban areas as there had been indiscriminate axing of a large number of trees in urban areas with growing pace of industrialisation and urbanisation in Maharashtra. The petitioner demanded an inquiry with regard to rampant destruction of trees for the sake of development from 2002 till date. He also requested the court to restrain the respondent from granting any permission to fell trees.
