Nagpur: The Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court on Tuesday restrained the Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA) from felling trees in the Ajni Van area spread over 446 acre in the absence of prior permission. The area is allegedly being cleared for redevelopment of Ajni Railway Station’s first phase.
Granting interim relief to petitioner Swacch Association through Secretary Sharad Paliwal, a division bench comprising Justice Atul Chandurkar and Justice Mahendra Chandwani issued notices to Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC), Maharashtra Chief Secretary, NHAI, RLDA and others, asking them to file a reply before May 3. Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) Commissioner and Garden Superintendent, State Environment Department, and Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) are other respondents.
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Saturday 28 Dec. 2024
The trees at Ajni Railway Colony were earlier chopped down without following the prescribed procedures or obtaining prior permission. The division bench issued the order during the hearing of a Civil Application filed in Public Interest Litigation (PIL) No. 15/2021. The same site was earlier earmarked for Inter-Modal Station (IMS) project to be developed by National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
Fearing felling of full-grown trees then, a PIL was filed in the High Court. The petitioner now claimed that the RLDA had recently undertaken large scale felling of trees without obtaining permission from the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), which is the authority to grant such permission if the number of trees to be cut are below 200, or from the Maharashtra State Tree Authority (MSTA), the authority when the number of trees exceed 200. It also stated that full-grown trees are being felled, causing harm to the environment.
“We find that the grievance raised in the civil application deserves consideration in public interest. Hence, at this stage, without going into question of the aspect on whether the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) should be disposed of, we are inclined to consider prayers made in civil application,” the bench said.
The petitioner, through counsels Pervez Mirza and Ragini Swami, had mentioned the petition for urgent listing in the morning. The judges asked them to appear after lunch.
The petitioner’s lawyers said RLDA has started works on the new Ajni station’s first phase on the same land where Inter-Modal Terminal (IMS) was earlier proposed by NHAI. While quoting various media reports, they accused RLDA of felling over 500 trees without seeking prior permission from the authorities. The RLDA was accused of breaching HC orders in an earlier PIL related to IMS, which is still pending.
“The entire exercise was undertaken without following the prescribed procedure, and obtaining prior permission either from NMC’s garden department or Maharashtra State Tree Authority (MSTA). If the number of trees is below 200 then the civic body’s nod is needed, and if they exceed 200 then tree authority’s consent is required,” they argued.
Pointing out that even full-grown trees, some of which were over 100 years old, were chopped off mercilessly, the lawyers contended that it led to further depletion of the city’s green cover.
Earlier, the petitioner had filed a complaint in this regard with NMC Commissioner and Imambada police station in-charge on April 23 and 24. However, there was no response from both sides, with the police not even registering an FIR.
NHAI counsel Anand Parchure informed that because of an earlier PIL related to IMS, which the petitioner had referred to, did not survive as the contract with National Construction Company Limited for Rs 1,200 crore project’s development and maintenance was terminated on June 1, 2021.
Assistant Government Pleader Nivedita Mehta and NMC counsel Gemini Kasat informed that they had no instructions that any permission was granted to RLDA for cutting or felling of trees at the project site.
