The Chandigarh administration on Friday undertook before the Punjab and Haryana high court that it will not axe more eucalyptus trees in Sector 9.
The UT’s counsel gave this undertaking before the bench of chief justice RS Jha and justice Arun Palli during resumed hearing of a plea by a city resident, Adityajit Singh Chadha, who had moved court against felling of trees outside the UT Secretariat in Sector 9. The detailed order is awaited.
The plea alleged that 100-odd eucalyptus trees had been axed outside in Sector 9 on the premise that cracks had started appearing in their trunks that posed a threat to the governmental building in their vicinity.
“Respondents are now initiating axing of 100 more eucalyptus trees that are opposite the Punjab Police Headquarters in Sector 9 without conducting any detailed investigations about the health of the trees,” the petitioner had submitted, seeking high court intervention.
As per the plea, the department of forests and wildlife, UT, had on July 22, 2022, constituted a tree-felling committee to receive applications, conduct a detailed inspection of the status and health of the tree and make specific recommendations, along with detailed justification, whether the tree was required to be pruned/pollarded/felled/transplanted or otherwise.
“The order also gives guidelines to be followed for felling of trees. However, in the present case, a perusal of the news articles and on specific query to the authorities, it has come to light that no detailed investigation has been conducted about the health of the trees before axing them,” the plea alleged.
{{/usCountry}}“The order also gives guidelines to be followed for felling of trees. However, in the present case, a perusal of the news articles and on specific query to the authorities, it has come to light that no detailed investigation has been conducted about the health of the trees before axing them,” the plea alleged.
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