Mumbai: Tree felling allowed with riders

The Bombay High Court has denied an interim stay on a recent amendment to the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act which had allowed civic bodies’ chiefs to have a final say in applications which sought the felling of trees below 25 in number. However, it upheld that the power vested with the municipal commissioner should not be “misused” and proposed certain checks that they should follow while considering the tree cutting proposals. 

A division bench consisting of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Riyaz Chagla held that the chiefs of civic bodies cannot ‘routinely’ use these powers to allow proposals for cutting trees. These powers can only be used only in ‘exceptional’ or ‘emergency’ cases. It also asked the municipal commissioners to publish the orders of tree felling passed by them on the corporation’s official website and put up advertisements in newspapers so that the citizens are allowed to raise objections to them, if required. 

The court has also imposed a 21-day embargo on the commissioner from executing its order. Additionally, the municipal commissioners also have to consult experts such as horticulturists before deciding on such matters. 

These checks were implemented after the petitioners, Zoru Bathena and Rohit Joshi, had filed a petition  challenging the amendment allowing such small tree cutting proposals to not require permission from the state tree authority.  

The petitioners had claimed that the proposals of felling trees of major infrastructural projects were divided into small sections of less than 25 each in order to avoid the tree authority. 

Earlier, the BMC had said that these powers are not arbitrary and the faster clearance in emergency situations was for the welfare of citizens. However, activists feel that the time for clearing such proposals will be prolonged as most of the decisions made by the commissioners are likely to be challenged. 

TRESS AFFECTED

The petitioner Zoru Bathena, claimed that a major tree felling proposal is broken into several proposals of less than 25 trees to allow the municipal commissioners to decide on tree cutting proposals in phases. This is done to bypass the tree authority. 

806 Trees will be affected in 49 infrastructure development proposals

ORDER STAYED

The Court held that the Thane Municipal Corporation’s tree authority is ex-facile illegal. The permission to cut over 5 k trees, issued by passing a resolution in October 2017, has been stayed

REPLACE TREE BOARD

Thane Municipal Commissioner is told to re-constitute Tree committee with members having some background in science