E-Paper
Didn’t know court permission was needed to cut trees: LG Saxena
Delhi's LG Vinai Kumar Saxena claimed he was unaware of the need for court permission to fell trees, learning of it only after the fact.
Delhi’s lieutenant governor (LG) Vinai Kumar Saxena has told the Supreme Court that he was not aware that permission of the court was necessary to fell trees in the Delhi ridge area, adding that he also came to know that the trees had been felled only after the fact.
Indeed, his February 3 visit to the work site where the trees were later felled, only involved a generic instruction on expediting work, the LG’s affidavit, filed late on Tuesday claimed.
In his affidavit, Saxena added that the felling of 642 trees in February without the court’s nod came to his knowledge only in June when the top court, while hearing a contempt petition against the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) directed its vice chairman to apprise the LG in his capacity as Chairman of DDA.
The affidavit by the LG was in response to an order passed by the court on October 16 while hearing a contempt petition on the felling of some 1100 trees in southern ridge area of Delhi for constructing a road near Satbari to provide better access to a multi-speciailty hospital for paramilitary forces, SAARC University , and other residential projects for the Delhi Police, CBI, NIA and CISF.
Breaking his silence in the matter after the court put specific queries to him about his visit to the tree-felling site on February 3, knowledge about tree-felling and subsequent application moved by DDA seeking permission from court, the LG clarified that, as per DDA records, a total of 642 trees were felled and not 1100 as claimed by petitioner. Of this, 174 fell in non-forest area and 468 in forest land.
On the site visit, the LG claimed, he only took stock of the progress of work of CAPFIMS hospital and on way back, he stopped at the road construction site and gave orders for expediting the work. He added that he was not aware of the requirement of taking court’s nod for tree felling and was under the belief that the only permission awaited was under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act, for which an application was pending with the Delhi government’s forest department.
“No one present at the site on the date of visit, brought to the notice...the legal requirements of obtaining permission from this court for felling of trees,” the affidavit said. In any event, he added, “The direction (to expedite work) by no stretch of imagination was to bypass the mandate of law.”
Saxena said he was first made aware of the requirement of SC permission on March 21 after the court dismissed the DDA application and directed it to constitute a committee of experts to reconsider the proposal. Even then, Saxena said in his affidavit, he did not know the trees had already been cut.
According to him, the fact that tree-cutting had actually commenced on February 16 was brought to his notice only on June 10 when he received a letter from the DDA vice chairman Subhashish Panda pursuant to the court ordering the latter to inform LG of the factual position with regard to tree felling.
By then, the apex court had already initiated contempt proceedings against the DDA VC .
On October 16, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) requested the LG to file an affidavit in his capacity as DDA Chairman indicating facts as per his personal knowledge and borne out of DDA records. It also asked him what remedial steps were taken after being informed about the developments in the matter.
The LG gave a clean chit to VC who had earlier informed the court that he was on medical leave when DDA filed the application before SC without disclosing the fact that trees had already been chopped. The LG said, “In this unfortunate event, there is no act of omission or commission on part of vice chairman DDA.” He requested that the VC be discharged from the proceedings and informed the court that department as well as criminal action has been initiated against an executive engineer and two assistant engineers for giving directions to the contractor for felling trees “on their own accord”.
DDA has maintained that Manoj Kumar Yadav, the executive engineer wrote to the contractor for felling trees and also blamed two assistant engineers , Pawan Kumar and Ayush Saraswat for acts of omission. However, the top court observed that these officers seem to be scapegoats as permission for felling these trees could not have come without the knowledge and approval from the top.
