SC agrees to hear plea seeking to restrain felling of trees in Delhi

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea seeking to restrain the Delhi government from allowing felling of trees in the national capital without the apex court's permission.

The application, which stated that five trees are felled in Delhi every hour, also sought to restrain the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change from permitting diversion of forests in Delhi without the top court's nod.

The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices A S Oka and A G Masih on Friday. The court asked the Delhi government and others to respond to the application by November 22.

The application has also sought the constitution of an expert committee, headed by a retired judge of the SC or the Delhi High Court, to assess the tree protection regimen in the national capital.

A report containing its recommendation for the protection and preservation of existing trees and forests in Delhi should be submitted by the committee before the apex court, it said.

The application referred to a February 2023 order of the Delhi High Court and said it was recorded that five trees were felled every hour in the national capital, based on the data provided by the Forest Department of Delhi.

It sought to restrain the Delhi government from allowing felling of trees in the national capital without the apex court's permission.

The preamble of the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act (DPTA), 1994 clearly states that it is "an Act to provide for the preservation of trees in the National Capital Territory of Delhi", it said.

"There are procedural safeguards provided within the DPTA which are clearly visible in the flow of the Act wherein protection and preservation of trees precede the regulatory mechanism for felling of trees. These procedural safeguards have been grossly violated," it added.

Referring to Section 7 of the DPTA, it said it is clearly enshrined in the Act that it shall be the responsibility of the tree authority to "preserve all trees within its jurisdiction" and also undertake critical study of the proposals of various government departments for construction of buildings, roads and factories with regard to the protection of the existing trees and planting more.

"A comprehensive study of all the meetings of the tree authority revealed that the tree authority has met a total of only eight times since its inception in 1995 till March 2021. Whereas, the tree authority had an obligation to meet once every three months," the application said.

It said the importance of preserving fully grown trees, including generational trees or heritage trees, cannot be undermined and it was the need of the hour.

The law laid down by the apex court has great significance for Delhi as the National Forest Policy mandates that one-third of the total land area of the country should be under forest or tree cover, it said.

"However, it is pertinent to note that till date, Delhi has not met the standards prescribed under the said policy. As per the India State of Forest Report 2021, the forest cover in Delhi is 13.15 per cent and tree cover is 9.91 per cent, therefore the total green cover is approximately 23 per cent as opposed to 33 per cent mandated by the said policy," the application stated.