Mumbai, October 4
“The greens (environmentalists) have failed,” the Bombay High Court said on Friday, while refusing to declare Aarey Colony a forest and declining to quash the BMC tree authority’s decision allowing felling of over 2,600 trees in the green zone to set up a metro carshed.
The court imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on Shiv Sena corporator Yashwant Jadhav, who opposed the approval given by the BMC tree authority, of which he is a member, for hacking trees in the green belt. A Division Bench of Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Bharati Dangre dismissed four petitions filed by NGOs and environmental activists on issues related to Aarey Colony in Goregaon, a major green lung of the metropolis.
The court termed all the petitioners as “Davids” taking on the industrial “Goliaths”, apparently suggesting that they were fighting an unequal battle.
One of the pleas moved by city-based NGO Vanshakti had sought that Aarey Colony be declared a forest and an ecologically sensitive zone, while another petition filed by green activist Zoru Bathena had pleaded that the area be given the status of a floodplain.
Dismissing the petition filed by Vanshakti, the court, in its judgment, said, “The greens (environmentalists) fail in the instant petition because they have lost touch with the procedure to be followed as per law. The clock cannot be put back. We do not make any comments thereon as the petitioner has to now swim or sink before the Supreme Court.” — PTI
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/333SWar
via Today’s News Headlines
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