SC closes contempt proceedings against DDA for felling trees in ridge land
The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to close contempt proceedings against Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and its officials for tree felling in Chhatarpur falling within southern ridge with the court taking a lenient view considering the larger objective being for expanding the road leading towards a multispecialty hospital.
Passing orders on a contempt petition filed by Delhi resident Bindu Kapurea seeking contempt action against then DDA vice chairman Subhashish Panda, a bench of justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh noted that 'clearly DDA was in contempt for keeping the court in the dark about the trees already being felled when its application for tree felling was taken up by the court'.
'The overarching public interest weighs heavily on this court,' the bench noted as it found that the action of tree cutting was not malafide but for constructing a road to serve the larger good of operationalising the hospital, whose construction is complete and is awaiting inauguration.
The DDA VC informed the court that he was on leave at the time of tree felling and had since then moved out of the department, considering which the court closed contempt proceedings against him.
Three officials who were found guilty after an internal inquiry held by DDA, were directed by the court to pay ₹25,000 each as a fine towards environmental damage.
Also Read: Tree felling near Sector 43 sparks outcry, audit demand
The court censured the three officials and clarified that this order will be in addition to any disciplinary action sought to be taken by the DDA.
As part of restorative steps to be undertaken for the 1,000 trees chopped in the ridge area, the bench considered the DDA proposal to undertake compensatory afforestation on a plot of 185 acres.
The bench directed a committee of three court-nominated experts to inspect the area along with officials of DDA and government of national capital territory (NCT) of Delhi.
The notice on the contempt petition was issued by the court in May last year when Kapurea through her lawyers – senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Manan Verma, pointed out how DDA misled the court by not informing it that even before its application seeking permission to fell trees could be heard by the top court on March 4 last year, the trees had been felled in February 2024.
The court had taken strict view of the matter and sought explanation from the DDA VC, its officials, the Delhi government and the Delhi lieutenant governor (LG) VK Saxena in his capacity as chairman of DDA.
DDA, which had accepted its mistake, told the top court on Tuesday to purge the contempt. The court took a serious view of the matter as Delhi ridge area constitutes the 'green lung' of Delhi and by an order passed by the top court on May 9, 1996, trees within ridge cannot be felled without court's prior permission.
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