In what could be termed as denial of natural justice, the Forest Department has gone ahead with felling 202 trees to facilitate the construction of the new district office complex at Padil without allowing environmentalists to challenge the Tree Officer’s permission to fell the trees.
While the order could be challenged before the Tree Authority, the government has not constituted the authority at all for Mangaluru region thereby leaving the activists perplexed. The Tree Authority has to be set up as per Section 3 of the Karnataka Preservation of Tree Act to hear appeals against orders of the Tree Officer, while Section 14 says that the appeal should be heard at least by three members of the authority and disposed of by providing reasonable opportunity to appellants to present their case.
The authority, according to the Act, should be headed by the Forest Officer in-charge of the territorial region (Chief Conservator of Forests. Though such an authority has not been constituted for Mangaluru, the Forest Department has gone ahead with felling trees on the 5.80 acre of land that once belonged to the Karnataka Forest Industries Development Corporation. The Tree Officer, an Assistant Conservator of Forests, allowed the district administration’s plea to fell 202 trees of more than 30 cm in girth for the proposed complex on January 9 this year. Accordingly, 202 trees, as well as another 124, were felled the very next day. The earmarked land has 666 trees in all. When activist-advocate Suma R. Nayak and a few others petitioned Chief Conservator of Forests Sanjay Bijur, who is the Forest Officer in-charge of the region, against the Tree Officer’s order, Mr. Bijur disposed of the appeals stating that he cannot entertain the appeals in the absence of a Tree Authority.
Environment Support Group’s Leo Saldanha said that the order of the Tree Officer would not have a statutory effect without the appeal remedy being exhausted. The administration has violated the basic premise of the Act to preserve trees, by felling trees, he said.
