The Bombay High Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging various permissions granted, including the BMC Tree Authority on January 6 allowing felling and transplanting of 140 trees at Tata Garden, for construction of the coastal road in Mumbai.
The HC vacated the interim stay by which it had restrained BMC from felling any more trees at Tata Garden in Breach Candy, to make way for its Rs 12,751-crore project.
The court asked the petitioner’s counsel Ankit Kulkarni to comply with Rule 7A of the Bombay HC PIL Rules for the petition to be heard, as till May, it had failed to take proper recourse by not requesting for an urgent hearing of the PIL since it was filed last year.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S Kulkarni dismissed the PIL after the petitioner, NGO Society of Improvement, Greenery, said that it was not in a position to deposit 0.5 per cent (Rs 60 crore) of the entire project cost in court.
According to Rule 7A, the court can exercise its discretion to direct a petitioner to deposit amount as security in its Registry, which shall be subject to final or interim order. If court finds the plea motivated, for personal gain, the amount deposit is forfeited.
The BMC is constructing a 10.58-km portion of the coastal road from Princess Street Flyover in Marine Drive to the Worli end of the Bandra-Worli Sea link. The road will pass through Priyadarshini Park, Tata Garden and Haji Ali.
The BMC will connect the coastal road with the existing internal road through Tata Garden. Between Bhulabhai Desai Road and Tata Garden, 140 trees were proposed to be felled or transplanted.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/bombay-hc-dismisses-pil-against-bmc-decision-to-fell-140-trees-at-tata-garden-7383627/
