What are you doing to restore the Delhi Ridge?: Supreme Court to DDA

The Supreme Court on Thursday, 7 November, asked the DDA about the measures undertaken to restore the Delhi Ridge area, where several hundred trees were allegedly felled illegally, and sought the extent of plantation done by the authorities.

Observing it would introduce a monitoring system to ensure planted trees were surviving, a bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra wondered if any independent mechanism was in place to ascertain the number of trees planted.

Saying it would pass necessary directions on 8 October, the top court asked the DDA counsel and the petitioner to inform it about the status of the trees felled, the consequent actions and the monitoring mechanism.

The ridge is an extension of the Aravalli Hill range in Delhi and is a rocky, hilly and forested area.

It has been divided into four zones — south, south-central, central and north — for administrative reasons. These four zones make up a total area of around 7,784 hectares.

The bench was dealing with a plea seeking action against erring officials for the alleged illegal tree felling in the area.

"What are you doing to restore the ridge?" asked the bench, adding, "We want to know how many trees were cut and what is being done to restore the Ridge and carry out afforestation."

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the petitioner, who has alleged contempt on part of the officials, said according to a report of the Forest Survey of India (FSI), a total of 1,670 trees were cut.

The DDA, however, earlier said the numbers stood at 642 trees.

The top court had issued a contempt notice to the DDA vice-chairman for allowing the felling of trees for the construction of an approach road.

During the hearing on Thursday, the bench asked, "How many trees have been planted as on date?"

Sankaranarayanan said the FSI would have to give some details about how many trees were planted and their status.

He referred to a 16 May order passed by the apex court, directing the FSI in Dehradun to depute its own team and find out the possible number of trees felled and assess the environmental damage.

The top court had said that retired IFS officer Ishwar Singh, central empowered committee member Sunil Limaye and ecological gardener Pradip Kishen would be associated with the work assigned to the FSI.

During the hearing on Thursday, the bench observed that 3,340 trees should be planted at the ridge along with 100 times the number of every tree cut.

"We will introduce a monitoring mechanism to ensure that the trees are surviving. Just give us some idea as to what kind of monitoring mechanism is being ensured," the bench said.

"Tell us what kind of enforcement mechanism we can put in place to obviate this in the future," it added, while posting the hearing for 8 November.