HC tells BMC: Give fair hearing to those who object to tree cutting

The Bombay High Court directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Thursday to grant a fair hearing to the city residents who are objecting to the proposal to cut trees for the metro carshed project.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice G S Kulkarni also directed the BMC’s tree authority to publish on its website details of the permission granted for cutting trees for the car shed and the map coordinates of such trees.

The directions came while the bench was disposing of a writ petition objecting to the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation's (MMRC) proposal to cut 2,700 trees to clear a 33-hectare plot at the Aarey Milk Colony here to make way for the proposed car shed for the Mumbai Metro-3 project.

The BMC objected to the plea, arguing it was premature since its tree authority was yet to grant final permission for cutting trees for the car shed.

The civic body said it had already invited objections from the public and was in the process of granting a hearing to such objections.

As per the plea, filed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Preeti Menon, the BMC’s tree authority had failed to provide a fair hearing to members of the public who had raised an objection to the proposed felling of trees. As per the petitioner, in the first such hearing on Wednesday, while the BMC received over 40,000 written objections and around 200 residents turned up for the public hearing, the civic body and MMRC officials left midway through the hearing, without resolving each person's issues.