MMRCL moves SC, requests apex court to direct BMC to permit cutting of 84 trees

Mumbai The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) on Wednesday filed an application before the Supreme Court, requesting the apex court to direct the tree authority of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to decide their plea for permission to cut 84 trees on the 33 hectares plot of the Metro car shed depot land in the Aarey Colony.

In its application, MMRCL said that after the order of Government of Maharashtra dated July 21, 2022, the car depot works have been resumed at the site. With Phase 1 (Aarey Station to BKC station) scheduled to be completed by December 2023 and Phase-2 (BKC to Cuffe Parade station) by June 2024, the depot works have to be completed by October 15, 2023.

With only 13-14 Months left to the depot deadline, the entire depot is to be made available even for phase-1 for works to begin. For the purpose of timely completion of the metro car shed, it is necessary to cut 84 trees which stand on the allotted plot. MMRCL stated that the application to cut these trees was already made to the Tree Authority of BMC on February 11, 2019 and that it has been pending.

Stalin Dayanand, director of NGO Vanashakti said, “This only proves that MMRCL has been lying all this while to the Hon. Supreme Court that there is no need to cut any more trees in Aarey forest. They have been cutting the tress since the work has resumed in the name of chopping of shrubs in the area. To get the order passed from Supreme Court is merely to cover up for all the trees they are cutting. This 2019 application was never mentioned in any of the judicial proceedings earlier, they have come up with this application now. Where was this 2019 application all these years? They should come clean back then instead of saying all trees that needed to be cut are cut.”

A spokesperson from MMRCL said “As the matter is subjudice, we refrain from any comments”

The Metro car shed -- originally through an order passed by the previous Devendra Fadnavis-led government in September 2019 -- is to come up on 33 hectares in Aarey colony.

But the surrounding area was declared as a “reserved forest” by the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government under former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, who decided to shift the project site to Kanjurmarg -- a decision that was hailed by environmental activists.

However, when the Eknath Shinde-led government took over in June -- now with Fadnavis as deputy CM -- its first order was bringing back the shed to the assigned plot in Aarey.

“This again exposes Fadnavis’s lies that we will not touch a single tree to build the metro car shed. Time and again he has said this on camera,” said Stalin.

In October 2019, the Bombay high court (HC) quashed a clutch of petition by environmentalists that sought to declare a 33-acre plot in the city’s green lung as a legal forest under the Indian Forest Act (1927). This patch was demarcated in 2013 to construct a car shed for the upcoming Metro 3 line.

Thousands of citizens held protests over the cutting of trees. Environmentalists and Aarey’s indigenous adivasi residents, who organised under the banner of Save Aarey, maintained that the plot performs all the ecosystem functions one associates with forests, from providing a home to leopards, to acting as a sponge which absorbs run-off from the nearby Mithi River during episodes of heavy rain, helping to prevent flooding on the Marol-Maroshi Road. Soon after the HC’s ruling, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) chopped 98% of the 2,185 trees in that site.