New Delhi: The Supreme Court is set to hear two contempt petition cases Friday — one civil and the other criminal — against the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) Vice-Chairman for illegal felling of 1,100 trees in the Southern Ridge for a road widening project.
But this isn’t the first instance in the Capital where trees have been axed without the necessary permissions.
Missing trees have been found buried in the ground — an attempt to hide traces of illegal felling. And the health of transplanted trees are often undocumented.
ThePrint recaps some of the other large government projects that have come under the scanner for allegedly failing to comply with rules and regulations.
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Dwarka Expressway: 400 trees ‘missing’
In 2019, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) heard a complaint by the Society for Protection of Culture, Heritage, Environment, Traditions & Promotion of National Awareness (SP-CHETNA) regarding the approval of tree-felling for the Dwarka Expressway project.
Three thousand trees were to be axed and another 3,500 were to be transplanted for the Rs 7,500 crore project.
In its August 2019 plea, SP-CHETNA alleged that while permission was granted to National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) by the Delhi Forest Department, it was done without an accurate assessment of whether this transplantation is actually viable, and without ensuring compensatory afforestation.
Transplantation is a process of uprooting trees with roots intact and planting them elsewhere, and is considered a type of compensatory afforestation activity. The Tree Transplantation Policy of the Delhi government says that when trees are removed for any development project, at least 80 percent of the trees should be transplanted when possible.
NGT then asked Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Delhi Forest Department, to produce a ‘factual’ report on the matter, before it could rule on the issue.
Within three months, the PCCF found that a total of 9,435 trees were allowed to be felled or transplanted for the Dwarka Expressway project in Delhi, but 400 of them were already ‘missing’. The on-ground study by the Delhi Forest Department found 400 trees buried under construction debris.
The Tree Officer of Delhi fined NHAI Rs 2.40 crore for this violation, and the NGT upheld the order while also asking for 4,000 extra saplings to be planted as compensation. It also ordered the Delhi Forest Department to ‘keep vigil’ on the saplings and transplanted trees from the project.
Delhi Metro Phase-IV tree felling
Another major developmental project in Delhi was the construction of the Delhi Metro Phase-IV which began in 2019 and would form the Aerocity-Tughlaqabad metro corridor.
While it had two applications underway in the Supreme Court to fell 6,961 trees in the reserved forest area of the Ridge and deemed forest areas in Janakpuri, Mukarba, and Najafgarh for the metro corridor, DMRC ran into trouble with the Delhi Forest Department.
The Deputy Conservator of Forests (West) fined the DMRC Rs 4.30 lakh in August 2020 for encroachment and damage to trees for Phase-IV Metro construction. The DCF, through a letter on 11 August that year also banned the DMRC from carrying out construction in the Vikaspuri to Peeragarhi and Najafgarh drain because they had felled trees without permission and barricaded the area.
In its plea, the DMRC was asking permission from the Supreme Court to declare deemed forest land as ‘non-forest land’ to allow diversion. But Aditya Prasad and P.C. Prasad, both environmental lawyers, contended that the top court did not reserve the right to do that. Any construction in the Ridge would be a violation of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
They also contended that the DMRC did not go through the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF) to make any diversions of forest land.
However, the Supreme Court finally granted permission to the DMRC to divert the necessary areas and fell around 7,000 trees for the project in a bid to balance the ecological preservation of Delhi with ‘sustainable development’.
Tree felling by RLDA
While not as famous, another controversial tree felling incident occurred in the Bijwasan village in Delhi when over 4 hectares of land was cleared of trees by the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) illegally.
The Delhi Forest Department conducted a preliminary investigation in May 2022 on complaints by citizens of Bijwasan and found 207 trees buried underneath sand and soil by the RLDA. These included Sheesham, Desi Keekar and Vilayati Keekar trees.
However, a more in-depth investigation by the Delhi Forest Department revealed that the RLDA had cleared 4 hectares of land and over 990 trees in an “illegal, inappropriate and unprofessional manner,” according to documents.
The RLDA had not secured permission from the Tree Officer of the Delhi Forest Department and had both damaged and felled trees for its Ready Mix Concrete Plant in Bijwasan.
However, upon finishing its investigation, the Delhi Forest Department directed the RLDA to submit a fine of Rs 5.93 crore for the offence.
‘Willful breach’ by DDA
In the latest cases, it’s the DDA that is under the scanner. In its affidavit before the Supreme Court, the development authority admitted that while it filed for permission to fell trees in the Ridge on 15 February, it didn’t wait for permission. It began the process of hewing the trees on 16 February without a go-ahead from the apex court.
The court expressed shock at the “willful breach” of the orders and initiated a criminal contempt case against the Vice-Chairman of the DDA, according to court documents.
Further, the court has also asked the DDA to establish whether the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, who also serves as Chairman of the DDA, had prior knowledge of the tree felling and had given approval for it.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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