Civil Court directs PMC to show legality of tree-felling  across Pune city

On a petition filed by Ameet Singh, Hema Chari, Sathya Natarajan and The Secular Community India, a Pune civil Court has passed a order for Pune Municipal Corporation to appear on 27 November, and show cause as to why they should not be forthwith restrained from issuing notices and passing orders to fell trees across Pune.

Petitioners’ advocate Rajendra Kumar argued that the law governing protection and preservation of trees has appointed the Metropolitan Commissioner (not the Municipal Commissioner) as the chairman of the Tree Authority. This important office has been usurped by the Municipal Commissioner rendering all post-2015 notices and orders illegal, after the PMRDA came into existence.

Petitioners fumed that as a result, PMC Commissioner has assumed the conflicting roles of tree-felling requisitioner as well as tree-protector eliminating the checks and balances imposed by law and breaking down the entire tree administration. 

Over the years, Ameet Singh remarked, this has led to indiscriminate felling of thousands of trees as if on a conveyor belt causing irreparable damage to Pune’s environment.