Read Time: 06 minutes

A Karnataka High Court bench of Chief Justice Rituraj Awasthi and Justice Sachin Magdum today permitted the felling of 577 trees and translocation of 212 while permitting the Phase 2A of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRC) to continue.

Uday Holla, Senior Advocate, appearing for  BMRC submitted that  a loss of Rs. 2 crore every day is being incurred due to withholding the project for want of permission.
He further submitted that as per the directions of the court the tree expert committee has prepared its report on 18th November which has been placed on record. The total number of trees under consideration for the phase of the project was 882 out of which total of 44 trees need not be felled for the project, 212 trees can be translocated and 577 trees need to be felled. It was submitted that the permission maybe granted to act as per the report of tree expert committee and cut the 577 trees and translocate 212 trees.

The counsel for the  petitioner objected to the report  of the tree expert committee submitting that as per the report updated in Nov 2019 only 1,218 trees were to be affected whereas in case of all the trees of Office Memorandums are taken together the total number of trees affected are 2115. It was further submitted that there is no explanation as to how the number of trees has increased from 1218 to 2115. It was submitted that the report cannot be relied and requires rejection.

The court on hearing the submission of the parties noted that they are of the view that the report of expert committee constituted by the orders of this court shall be accepted. The court further noted that simply because there is some variation in the number of trees mentioned in the earlier report, does not mean that the tree expert committee has not properly carried out the work as per the process elucidated in the order. The court noted that there can be variation of number of trees in the preparation of the report which was done in 2016 and the number of trees examined/observed while carrying out the work.

The court while observing that they have taken note of the fact that the committee has recommended retention of 44 trees on site and translocation of 212 trees held that as such 256 trees saved on the basis of the report of the tree expert committee.
The court noted that however 577 trees are required to be cut and that they are not experts to opine as to whether these trees are to be cut or not and that they go by the expert report and as such go by the report of committee.

The court thus directed BMRC to do the needful and finish the work in a time bound manner.

Case title: Dattatreya Devare Vs State of Karnataka