NEW DELHI: Taking note of official figures that five trees are felled every hour in Delhi, Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea seeking a complete ban on cutting of any tree in the city without the court’s permission, which at present is applicable to only forest trees.
Underscoring that something needs to be done to check felling of trees, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih issued notices to Delhi govt and tree officers, asking them to respond by Nov 22. It said the court has to decide under what conditions and manner felling of trees should be allowed.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and lawyer Manan Verma, appearing for the petitioner, highlighted the grim picture of continuous felling of trees in recent years and said as authorities set up under Delhi Preservation of Trees Act (DPTA) have failed to check it, Delhi’s green cover is depleting.
“There are procedural safeguards provided within the DPTA which are clearly visible in the flow of the Act wherein protection and preservation of trees precede the regulatory mechanism for felling of trees. These procedural safeguards have been grossly violated,” the petition said.
“It is clearly enshrined in Section 7 of the said Act that it shall be the responsibility of the Tree Authority to ‘preserve all trees within its jurisdiction’,” the petition said.
‘Tree Authority met 8 times since inception’
Referring to data compiled by the Delhi forest department, Sankaranarayanan told the bench that as per the latest figures, on an average, five trees are cut every hour. The total number of trees allowed to be felled under official sanction for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 under all categories was 1,33,117, which puts the annual felling of trees at 44,372.33 and over 5 trees per hour (2019-2021).
The petition filed by Delhi-based environment activist Bhavreen Kandhari alleged that a comprehensive study of all the meetings of the Tree Authority revealed that the authority had met only eight times since its inception in 1995 till March 2021. “The Tree Authority had an obligation to meet once every three months. Accordingly, it should have met at least a bare minimum of 104 times till July 2021, as per its statutory mandate,” the petition said.
Accusing the authority of not complying with SC’s directions, the petition said, “The law laid down by this court has great significance for Delhi, as the National Forest Policy mandates that one-third of the total land area of the country should be under forest or tree cover.”
“However, it is pertinent to note that till date, Delhi has not met the standards prescribed under the said policy. As per the India State of Forest Report 2021, the forest cover in Delhi is 13.1% and tree cover is 9.9%. Therefore, the total green cover is approximately 23% as opposed to 33% mandated by the said policy,” it said.
