SC moots apparatus for tree-felling compliance

The Supreme Court on Friday contemplated devising a mechanism that will ensure that orders for felling of trees are verified on ground and conditions for compulsory afforestation are scrupulously followed.

“Day in and day out we receive applications for felling of trees. Somebody has to verify that the directions that we pass are followed,” said a bench headed by justice AS Oka.

The court was considering a set of applications seeking permission for felling of trees for carrying out development works.

“It is necessary to create machinery to verify whether the work of felling trees is actually carried out as per the orders of this court and other conditions on compulsory afforestation,” added the bench, also comprising justice Augustine George Masih.

The court order comes on the heels of recent developments where the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) was found to have felled more than 1,000 trees at Satbari without taking permission from court. After issuing contempt notices to DDA and Delhi forest department among other authorities, it came to light that DDA moved the permission before the Delhi government under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act for felling 422 trees, but instead chopped down nearly 860 trees.

The top court recently constituted a committee of three experts along with a team from Forest Survey of India (FSI) to determine the total number of trees cut. This report is still awaited.

Posting the matter for July 29, the bench neither referred to the Delhi ridge case nor laid down the contours about the contemplated mechanism. It sought assistance of senior advocates ADN Rao and Guru Krishna Kumar, assisting the court as amici curiae, to hold consultations in this regard and come out with a proposed mechanism.

Rao said he will hold consultations with the statutory expert body of Central Empowered Committee (CEC) and the Delhi forest department to know the ground realities. However, Kumar informed of such a mechanism being in place in the Delhi high court. He suggested having a nodal officer of the Delhi forest department to undertake this task.

The issue came up for discussion while considering a report by CEC on a proposal forwarded by the Director of Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) for felling 39 trees of various species for construction of a new laboratory complex for National Geochronology Facility and Electron Accelerator Facility at the IUAC Campus. The lab was proposed in an area measuring 0.29 hectare that falls in the morphological ridge area of Delhi and is close to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus. CEC, on a relook, suggested that the project can be viable with cutting of just 10 trees and pruning another seven in the area.

The bench said, “We do not know if only 10 trees will be cut. We also do not know whether earlier permissions that we have granted (for chopping trees) have been followed. We will now verify if our conditions have been complied.”

Usually, while passing orders permitting tree felling for carrying out projects in Delhi or in the Taj Trapezium zone – the two matters which are pending in court – the court used to take an undertaking from the concerned government or authority to deposit the net present value as a compensation for the felled trees and to carry out compulsory afforestation to offset the damage to the environment.

Last week, on July 11, the top court had remarked: “Our job is to see how every tree can be saved.”

It was the same bench which made the observation while dealing with a highway project of the UP government seeking permission to fell 3,874 trees. CEC examined the proposal and saved 1,000 trees by suggesting to the court that the project required felling of only 2,818 trees. The court said that it will not “rubberstamp” proposals by state for felling trees and reminded governments not to casually file applications being custodians of environment.