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Three including construction firm chairman booked for illegal felling of trees
The action was taken after a complaint by Suresh Ghode (46), a garden staffer at Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) after the civic body learnt about the incident from a citizen Sanjay Dayanand Ausarmal
Three people, including a prominent construction company chairman, have been booked on Saturday for alleged illegal felling of trees near an ongoing construction site at Nashik Phata in Pimpri-Chinchwad, police said on Sunday.
The action was taken after a complaint by Suresh Ghode (46), a garden staffer at Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) after the civic body learnt about the incident from a citizen Sanjay Dayanand Ausarmal.
Ghode stated, “Up to ten trees had been chopped down, including one Peltophorum, two Subabhul, two Australian acacia, one Karanj, two Stathodea, one Cassia, and two dead Cassias. This was done without permission from the tree authorities.”
The developer claimed that the trees were felled to lay electric power supply wires.
Senior Police Inspector Nitin Phatangre, of the Bhosari police station, said the trio was booked for allegedly felling and chopping trees without the authorisation of the tree authority. The incident happened between midnight on May 17 and the morning of May 18.
“Based on the PCMC staff’s allegation, three people were booked under Sections 3(1) and 4 of the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act, 1975.
The private developer in their official statement said, ‘The company received a notice from the garden department of PCMC late yesterday evening dated June 1, 2024. The notice of alleged tree cutting pertains to trees that were purportedly on some roadside where work was being carried out 1.5 km away from our project by M/s New Rushikesh Enterprises. We do not believe there has been any wrongdoing on our part and our names are falsely implicated in the matter.”
