Pune News : Citizens Challenge Tree Felling Violations, Putting PMC Under Scrutiny in Civil Court

By: Pune Pulse

November 29, 2023

Pune: Several active Pune citizens had filed a petition in a Pune Civil Court regarding tree felling incidents by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The first hearing concluded on November 27 (Monday).

As per information, the hearing of the matter saw a tough battle over the interpretation of the law for interim relief for the petitioners Ameet Gurucharan Singh, Hema Chari Madabhushi, Sathya Natarajan, The secular community of India and their advocate Rajendra Kumar, demonstrated nine specific instances of violation of law calling for instant halt of all tree felling activities. Those are as follows:

·         Violation u/s 3 (A-1): State Tree Authority is missing – No gazette. No members. No minutes of the meeting.

·         Violation u/s 3 (1) and (2): Wrong officer chairing local Tree Authority – By statute, local tree authority is CEO (Metropolitan Commissioner).

·         Violation u/s 3 (3): Expert Committee; wrong appointer and appointee – After 5 years of BHC order, PMC (not PMRDA) constituted an expert committee. Private party ‘M/s Lotus’ included, not allowed by law.

·         Violation u/s 5 r/s Rule 4 (iv): Tree Officers, Secy not competent – Secretary is not a tree officer. Tree Officers are incompetent.

·         Violation u/s 6-A (i), (ii): No state monitoring; mechanism in place – No control of state government exists at all.

·         Violation u/s 7: No geo-tagging, census despite BHC order of 2013 – HC ordered in 2013. But the given site leads nowhere.

·         Violation u/s 8 (2): No alternate design, no impact assessment – 26,800 trees in three years without EIA/alternate design.

·         Violation u/s 8 (3) (a) (v) and (vi): Misrepresentation of heritage trees – Heritage trees fraudulently reported non-heritage.

·         Violation u/s 11 r/w: Inadequate replantation without preservation – No record of replantation. No mandatory 3-monthly tree preservation reports over six years on record.

The PMC was represented by Adv Bothare who did not deny or admit any of the nine violations. However, the counsel succeeded in convincing the Court that the citizens can seek relief including compensation from the National Green Tribunal, High Court, or Supreme Court. 

Ameet Singh, a petitioner said, “Pune consumes 5.6 crore kWh of electricity, it has over 45 lakh vehicles, and millions of sq ft of construction are added each year. Despite spending thousands of crores Pune remains incapable of treating all its sewage and dumps its garbage into landfills. All these activities generate 2.6 crores tons of emissions and pollution every year. Shouldn’t the authorities be held accountable for what’s going on? The only proven mitigation method for ridding Pune of pollution is trees. Instead of increasing Pune’s tree cover, PMC is busy destroying it under the guise of development. They have taken it upon themselves to destroy lakhs of trees under projects such as more and more road widening, RFD, and rampant construction with 4FSI & 5FSI along the metro corridor. When will we begin to breathe clean air again? How long will we breathe poison, eat plastic and drink sewage?”

Gangotri Chanda, an active citizen said, “Under the Tree Act, permission is granted to remove obstructing trees for development, with the condition to transplant specific species like peepal and ficus and plant new saplings. However, transplantation needs to bind the root properly, but roots remain spread usually so long under the ground that it becomes a must to cut the roots, and, in a new place with a changed environment most of the transplanted trees can’t be accustomed to, hence can’t survive. Also, PMC is unable to show the success rate data on transplantation. And, how can the newly planted saplings replace and serve the ecology of fully grown trees with flora-fauna? In this case, if it has been said that a certain amount of trees are to be cut and compensated by sapling plantation and a certain amount of trees will be transplanted, in our understanding the whole ecology of all the marked trees is being destroyed. One more question, while due to lack of space for ‘development,’ important trees are being cut, where is the place for transplantation or newly planted saplings? PMC is doing the plantation/transplantation in the Tekdi area outside of the city. But when the ‘development’ will spread as its continuation, the trees planted/transplanted now will be chopped then, right? And, what’s the need to widen the road if there is a smooth public transport system? If there are only 1650 buses where 5150 buses are needed, and buses fail in the middle of the road, people will use private vehicles, and road widening becomes an excuse for destroying the ecology! What could be the real reason behind this? For the ease of doing business for the road construction companies? For the ease of doing business for the automobile companies? The more people buy cars the more GDP grows. And the profit of the fuel companies are also lined up, be it fossil fuel or lithium-ion batteries.“

The Court did not agree with the contention of the petitioners that the civil Court has the jurisdiction and powers to halt the operation of any unauthorized order under the Civil law, whereas the tribunal can deal with challenges to authorized civic orders only, which is not the case of the petitioners. The question is only of fact vs. the law.

The matter, now to be heard, will come up for the next hearing on December 12. The petitioners do hope that the State Government will resolve all the nine specific issues raised by citizens over the locus standi of the Municipal Commissioner as Chairman of Tree Authority before taking any further steps for felling of trees in the larger interest of the citizens.

Earlier, a Pune Civil Court passed an order for Pune Municipal Corporation to appear on November 27, and show cause as to why they should not be forthwith restrained from issuing notices and passing orders to fell trees across Pune –

Shreyas Vange