The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday fixed for Tuesday a public interest litigation alleging that 961 fully grown trees in Mohali’s Sector 69 were being uprooted.The allegations come at a time when the high court has already imposed a general ban on cutting of trees across Punjab and Haryana.At the outset, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry asked pointedly: “What is the public cause that you’re raising?”Responding, counsel for the petitioner submitted that “there are 961 fully grown trees in Sector 69 of Mohali and we want to preserve it as a forest”. He alleged that heavy “earth moving machinery” had been moved to the site for uprooting the trees.Seeking interim protection, he urged the court to maintain status quo at the site while expressing apprehensions that all trees would otherwise be uprooted.In an attempt to buttress his submissions, the counsel referred to the photographs annexed with the application claiming that they showed heavy machinery at the site.The Bench, however, expressed reservations over the evidentiary value of the material placed on record. “No, we don’t know when these photographs were clicked. We have no idea,” the court observed.Responding to the court’s query on the date on which the photographs were taken, the counsel added: “These were taken on February 18. I do not only say, I certify also that these photographs were taken on February 18.”Chief Justice Nagu then pointed out that there was already a complete ban on cutting of trees and the petitioner could reply on it.The Bench after hearing the submissions agreed to hear the matter on February 24. It is expected to be included in the list of urgent cases.Acting on a bunch of two petitions filed in public interest, the High Court in December had directed that trees would not be axed without the court’s permission. In one of the petitions, Mohali resident Praneet Kaur had challenged the large-scale, ongoing felling and uprooting of mature trees on public non-forest land in the area by the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority for infrastructure projects.
