Tag: aarey felling

Cases Against Aarey Activists To Be Withdrawn, Says New Maharashtra CM

Uddhav Thackeray reiterated that he was not stopping any metro project in Mumbai.

Mumbai: Cases registered against green activists who tried to stop the felling of trees in Mumbai’s Aarey Colony will be withdrawn, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray announced on Sunday night.

Cases were registered after clashes broke out between the police and green activists opposing axing of trees by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) in Aarey Colony in early October for construction of a metro car shed for the Metro-3 line.

“I have directed police officials to withdraw the cases registered against green activists who were protesting against chopping of trees in the Aarey forest area,” Thackeray told reporters.

Also watch: Watch | Save Aarey Campaign: Petitioners and Activists Answer Queries

The CM reiterated that he was not stopping any metro project in Mumbai.

After taking charge as the chief minister on November 29, Thackeray, who heads the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government, had announced stay on construction of the metro car shed project in the colony, a prime green lung of the city.

Police had booked at least 38 protesters under IPC sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharging duty), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from duty) and 143 (unlawful assembly).

Of them, 29 protesters, including six women, were arrested when some of them allegedly tried to obstruct the police personnel at Aarey from discharging their duty and manhandling them.

A sessions court had on October 6 granted conditional bail to 29 protesters.

Watch | Save Aarey Campaign: Petitioners and Activists Answer Queries

The Wire speaks to the petitioners and activists of the Save Aarey movement about the Mumbai high court’s stay order and the arrests that happened after Section 144 was imposed in the area.

The Wire speaks to the petitioners and activists of the Save Aarey movement about the Mumbai high court’s stay order and the arrests that happened after Section 144 was imposed in the area. They also spoke about the MMRCL ‘s decision to chose Aarey forest for the car shed construction and what the plan of action will be if further felling of trees takes place.

Also read: Ten Things to Know About Aarey and the Protests Surrounding it

Note: These interviews were taken on October 10 and 12.

Not Stopping Construction of Metro Shed Project in Aarey Colony: SC

The Supreme Court said this in response to a PIL filed by a Mumbai law student along with a letter addressed to CJI Ranjan Gogoi.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday said it is not stopping the construction of the Metro shed project in Mumbai’s prominent green lung Aarey Colony, where protests were held against cutting of trees for the work.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta sought a status report with pictures on the plantation, transplantation and felling of trees in the Aarey colony area of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the civic body BMC, assured the bench that no further tree felling is being done in Aarey colony and complete status quo is being maintained following the apex court’s last order.

The top court posted the matter for further hearing in November.

The apex court had earlier decided to register as PIL a letter addressed to Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi by law student Rishav Ranjan seeking a stay on cutting of trees.

The Bombay high court had on October 4 refused to declare Aarey Colony a forest and declined to quash the Mumbai municipal corporation’s decision to allow felling of over 2,600 trees in the green zone to set up a metro car shed.

The letter states,”As we write this letter to you Mumbai authorities continue to kill the lungs of Mumbai i.e Aarey forest by clearing of trees near Mithi river bank and according to news reports 1,500 trees have already been cleared by authorities.

“Not only this but our friends are put in jail who were peacefully organising a vigil against acts of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) with Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) at the site,” the letter said.

The student requested the Supreme Court “to exercise its epistolary jurisdiction to protect Aarey without getting into technicalities as there was no time for preparation of a proper appeal petition and cover the scars of these young activists who are responsible citizens standing for serious environmental concerns”.

It also said that students have moved the apex court as the Bombay high court rejected the bail plea of 29 activists who had participated in the “peaceful vigil” against the tree-felling and have been detained by Mumbai Police.

The letter has alleged that the student-activists were abused and manhandled by the Mumbai Police which has booked them for offences of ‘assault on a public servant to deter him from discharging his duty’ and ‘unlawful assembly’ under the IPC.

According to the letter, Aarey forest is located adjacent to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and has five lakh trees. The trees were proposed to be cut for Mumbai metro-3 project and specifically for construction of a car shed, it said and added the high court refused to recognise Aarey as a forest or declare it as an ecological sensitive issue because of jurisdictional limits.

The police had earlier imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code in Aarey, restricting movement and gathering of groups, and cordoned off the area.

(PTI)

Supreme Court Stays Felling of Trees in Mumbai’s Aarey Until Further Orders

The court also ordered the release of all environmental activists who have been detained.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered that no more trees be cut in Mumbai’s Aarey forest until October 21, when it would hear a plea against the government’s decision to clear the area for a metro car shed.

The court also asked all activists who have been detained for protesting the government’s action to be released.

According to LiveLaw, solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Maharashtra government, undertook that no further trees will be cut. A Supreme Court special vacation bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Ashok Bhushan said the legality of trees that have already been felled can be decided by the environment bench after the Dusshera vacation.

According to NDTV, the Maharashtra government said that no more trees need to be cut in Aarey as “those that needed to be removed have been cut”.

The bench was constituted after a group of law students wrote to Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi on Sunday asking the court to intervene and stop the trees from being cut. The students said they were forced to approach the Supreme Court because the Bombay high court rejected an application moved by environmentalists seeking a stay on the cutting of trees until the matter is head before the Supreme Court.

Senior advocates Sanjay Hegde and Gopal Shankaranarayanan appeared for the law students who filed the petition. They said the issue whether Aarey is a forest or not is pending in the Supreme Court, according to LiveLaw. The National Green Tribunal is considering whether the area is an eco-sensitive zone and therefore, the authorities should have refrained from cutting down trees until a decision was taken, they said.

Aarey is considered a “green lung” of the city as it is one of the few areas that have dense forest cover. Both the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation and the BJP-run state government have maintained that Aarey is not a forest area and hence the trees can be axed.

Previous developments

After the Bombay high court on Friday refused to declare the Aarey Colony a forest area. It also declined to quash a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) decision allowing the felling of over 2,600 trees in the suburban green zone for a metro car shed.

However, the court’s Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog had orally observed that he hoped authorities will not start cutting the trees before the petitioners moved the Supreme Court, according to reports.

Authorities began felling of trees at around Friday midnight. On Saturday, activists, citizens, celebrities and politicians began protesting the move. Several politicians were taken into preventive custody and released later. Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code, which prohibits assembly of more than four persons in an area, was imposed around the colony. The 29 environmental activists who were arrested were sent remanded to five-days judicial custody.

The Shiv Sena, which runs the BMC and is a partner in the state government, has vehemently protested the decision to cut the trees. Other opposition parties have also voiced their support for the protests.

Aarey Tree Felling: Protests Continue, Activists to Approach CJI

Prakash Ambedkar was taken into preventive custody on Sunday.

New Delhi: As the protests over felling of trees in Mumbai’s Aarey colony continue, a group of environmental activists have decided to approach Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi to intervene.

According to News18, a delegation of students will visit CJI Gogoi’s residence in Delhi on Sunday and request him to exercise “special jurisdiction” to “go out of the conventional way to put a stay on the felling of trees in Aarey by Mumbai Authorities”.

After the Bombay high court refused on Friday to hear petitions challenging the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) decision to chop more than 2,600 trees in the Aarey colony to make way for a metro shed, felling of trees began.

As The Wire reported, more than 1,000 trees were estimated to have been felled on Saturday despite protests from activists, politicians – including by the Shiv Sena, which administers the BMC, citizens and celebrities. Police took at least 29 persons into custody on Saturday. Another 55 people were taken into preventive detention.

On Sunday, the student delegation told the media that they have decided to approach the CJI because “there is no time left for filing an appeal petition and going through legal technicalities as by then Aarey will be cleared off by the Mumbai Authorities”. Prohibitory orders continued to be in force in the colony and surrounding areas on Sunday.

The police on Saturday imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code in Aarey, restricting movements and gathering of groups, and cordoned off the area.

Activists tried to get relief from the Bombay high court, by approaching the court again on Saturday and seeking a stay to tree cutting, so that they could approach the Supreme Court. The court refused to admit the plea.

Workers cut-down trees for the Metro car shed project in the Aarey colony of Mumbai on October 5, 2019. Photo: PTI Photo

More leaders detained on Sunday

Prakash Ambedkar was among politicians who were taken into preventive detention on Sunday. The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) leader tried to enter the Aarey Colony in support of activists who are opposing the cutting of trees in the area to make way for a Metro car shed.

He said the Maharashtra government was using “muscle power” to silence those raising voice against tree felling.

When the VBA chief reached the Aarey area located in suburban Goregaon on Sunday, he was detained by police for a brief period. Later, after being released, he told reporters, “The green cover at Aarey Colony helps in the purification of air, the same way as fresh breeze coming from the Arabian Sea helps in keeping Mumbai air clean.”

“We were told that some 700 trees have been axed. We will continue to oppose the tree felling in all forms, even if we fail to come to power in the state after the upcoming assembly elections,” he said.

VBA leader Prakash Ambedkar. Credit: PTI

Members of a tribal community who reside in the forest area have also opposed the tree cutting, as they are largely dependent on the forest for their livelihood.

The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) has defended tree felling, saying it is restricted only to a small area in the Aarey Colony and is necessary to ensure a modern transport system. The proposed car shed for the Metro-3 line (Colaba- Bandra-Seepz) will occupy 33 hectares.

Heavy security deployed

Heavy security was deployed at Aarey Colony’s five entry points, including the key connecting road near the Western Express Highway, to prevent people from going towards the area. Most shops, restaurants and roadside stalls remained closed in the area in view of the imposition of Section 144 since Saturday.

Patrolling was stepped up in the tribal hamlets located in Aarey area and those found assembling there were being taken into custody, but later let off after proper verification, he said.

He said that Section 144 will remain imposed in the area till the 2,600 trees are cut.

(With PTI inputs)

The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway Is a Short-Cut to Socio-Ecological Disaster

The government’s obsession with blitzing through infrastructure initiatives to extract value by cheapening nature has become the bedrock of a new India.

The felling of trees in Mumbai’s Aarey forest to make way for a shed for the Mumbai Metro exemplifies the government’s disregard for the environment in its pursuit of economic growth. The people called out Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hypocrisy, with reference to his comments when he was on the show ‘Man Versus Wild’, and the doublespeak of Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar’s defence of tree-cutting.

Meanwhile, environmental activists have led Mumbai’s civil society in protests dubbed ‘Mumbai’s Chipko Movement’. The police have detained many protestors and the government has resorted to unconventional tactics, such as cutting trees at night.

Even as this issue plays out, another disaster waits on the horizon, threatening to drastically alter the socio-environmental fabric of north, central and western India.

Launched in March 2019, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is expected to be the largest road infrastructure project in India to date. The access controlled, greenfield expressway – 1,320 km long with eight lanes – is projected to cost about Rs 99,000 crore.

Nitin Gadkari, the Union minister of road transport and highways, said at the launch that the project was the brainchild of a small team of technical consultants, i.e. devised without public consultation. Within six months of the announcement, its construction was already underway. This project – hiding behind the excuse of delivering “world-class” infrastructure – is another attempt to ride roughshod over legitimate environmental and sociological concerns in the name of development.

The primary justification for this mega-bypass connecting Delhi and Mumbai is that it would reduce the cost of land acquisition as it passes through “backward and tribal” districts in Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. However, the expressway will also cut through some of the country’s most fragile ecological areas and conservation zones in north and central India. These include the Ranthambore and Mukandra Hills tiger reserves and the Ramgarh Vishdhari wildlife sanctuary, and forests of the Aravalli, Vindhya and Satpura ranges. The project will also pass through countless oran and dev bani – sacred forests that often lack recognition and protection – and affect the catchment areas of many important rivers, and extended ecological areas of the Sariska and Kuno wildlife reserves.

The government’s disregard for socio-ecological stability in these regions is frustrating but its wider economic rationale is cause for worry. Gadkari and the late Arun Jaitely claimed when launching the project that the expressway was just a start and the cost benefits it accrues will be further capitalised by building suburban townships, industrial-logistical hubs and ‘Smart Cities’.

There is little information about the project in the public domain. However, one environmental impact assessment report the National Highways Authority of India submitted for a 240-km stretch passing through Rajasthan, available on the environment ministry website, offers a glimpse of the contractors’ priorities. It contains a lot of words about the project’s economic impact but much fewer assessing the environmental impact of construction, especially considering the stretch passes through the territories of endangered wildcats.

Urbanising such an ecologically important and sensitive area will be detrimental to plant diversity and to the movement of animals of local and national importance.

Set aside the promise of jobs, better wages and economic progress, and the ground situation tells a different story. In discussions with villagers from areas that will be affected by the expressway, we – along with an NGO named KRAPAVIS – discovered widespread social unrest due to unfair compensation, deteriorating livelihoods and social alienation.

(Editor’s note: One of the authors of this article, Aman Singh, is a member of KRAPAVIS.)

The government is offering most farmers Rs 3 lakh or so per bigha, even in Alwar, which is part of the National Capital Region. Its assurance that it would provide jobs has also turned up empty, with contractors involved in the construction refusing to employ locals, preferring to bring in migrants and so prevent unionisation.

The expressway’s design is also a source of concern. It will maintain an average displacement of 15 feet from the ground, creating an imposing physical barrier that has farmers worried that their communities and livelihoods will become divided and also because the expressway could keep groundwater from reaching their fields.

To create the 15-foot-high bed for the 100-metre-wide road, engineers have been exploding and flattening entire hills, and repurposing soil from productive landscapes. A part of the road will pass through the land of large pastoral communities that rely on the ecological commons and access to different parts of the landscape.

In our interactions, farmers asked why the government wanted to build an expressway to develop the area when a canal would do it more. “The land conversion will only help real-estate developers and people looking to invest in real-estate while completely destroying our livelihoods,” one said.

The residents of many farming villages have come together to agitate as well as to mount a legal challenge. The road has been divided into simultaneously developed construction segments so it seems like the project will be completed for many years (much like the troubled Dwarka expressway, which was also relaunched at the same event).

The “not just roads, building a nation” mantra associated with the road transport ministry’s Bharatmala project is perhaps more brazen about the purpose of projects of its nature in general: roads aren’t just roads but are a means to privatise communally owned land.

Also read: Meet Tamil Nadu’s Eight-Lane Expressway to Environmental Hell

This obsession with blitzing through infrastructure initiatives to extract value by cheapening nature has become the bedrock of a new India, where the government, businesspeople and corporations are pushing into vital parts of India’s hinterland without paying attention to their socio-ecological consequences. More expressways will also exacerbate air and surface pollution.

All together, Jaitley’s equation of the project to the American motorway system – as harbingers of economic growth – only comes across as more mindless because both projects will have considerably harmed India’s farmers, landscapes, flora and animals.

Nitin Bathla is a doctoral candidate at ETH Zurich and works on ecology and urbanisation in the extended urban region of Delhi. Aman Singh is a member of KRAPAVIS.

Aarey: Protests Intensify as MMRCL Hacks Trees, Several Activists Arrested

MMRCL began felling trees late on Friday night amidst heavy police cover.

Mumbai: City police has cordoned off the entire Aarey colony area in the Mumbai suburbs of Goregaon following massive protests against tree felling by local residents and environment lovers who had gathered in the area since Friday night.

Police have arrested 29 people and several others have been detained at the nearby police chowkie. Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code, which prohibits assembly of more than four persons in an area, has also been imposed around the colony.

A local magistrate court has sent all 29 activists to judicial custody for five days. Soon after their arrests, the activists had moved court seeking bail. The court rejected their plea.

A case has been registered under sections 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on the complaint of a 28-year-old woman police constable who was allegedly injured in a scuffle between the activists and police.

The agitation began late on Friday night when the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL), amid heavy police deployment, began cutting trees in the area. Early in the day, the Bombay high court had rejected three petitions filed by different citizens groups against the MMRCL’s decision to fell 2,646 trees in the area.

Aarey, which is considered as a “green lung” of the city, is perhaps the only area that has dense forest cover in the city. Both MMRCL and the BJP government have maintained that Aarey is not a forest area and hence the trees can be axed.

Also read: It’s Aarey vs Metro Rail as Mumbai Continues to Lose Its Green Cover

The operation that began around 9.30 pm, went on till late at night. Several residents, mostly belonging to different Adivasi communities, tried to resist the cutting of trees. “At least 300 of them were axed in less than two hours. When we tried to resist, we were pushed out of the area. Now they have cordoned the entire area off and we are not able to even go nearby,” said Sushma Bhoye, a local resident and an activist.

Soon after the MMRCL decided to take this drastic move late at night, several citizens groups and environment lovers took to social media to condemn the move. Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray, too, tweeted against it.

Several Sena leaders, who had visited the spot have been put under preventive detention, the police confirmed.

As the day progressed and the MMRCL continued to fell trees, petitioners once again moved the Bombay high court seeking a stay until they could file an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the high court verdict.

Since Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, who had passed the judgment rejecting petitions against the metro project on Friday was not available, the petitioners moved their plea before a Special Bench headed by Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari on Saturday.

The petitioners claimed that they had made an oral request before the presiding court on Friday for a stay. However, Justice Dharmadhikari observed, “There is nothing on record to show that any request was made to stay the operation, implementation and enforcement of the judgment and order, nor was any specific restraint sought. We cannot proceed on any oral understanding. Merely because another bench has been constituted, it would not be proper to grant any relief. The nature of the relief is such that if it is granted, it would directly contravene the observations, findings and conclusions in the detailed judgment.”

This was a last ditch attempt by the petitioners to save over 2,500 trees in the Aarey colony. Activists said that by late afternoon, MMRCL had already cut more than 1,500 trees. This claim, however, couldn’t be independently confirmed, nor did officials divulge numbers.

Earlier attempts

The Bombay high court while rejecting the petitions earlier, had observed, “The greens (environmentalists) have failed. They have failed in the instant petition because they have lost touch with the procedure to be followed as per law. The clock cannot be put back. We do not make any comments thereon as the petitioner has to now swim or sink before the Supreme Court.”

The court also refused to declare Aarey Colony a ‘forest’ which was one of the primary asks in one of the petitions filed by city-based NGO Vanshakti. The NGO had sought that Aarey Colony also be declared an ecologically sensitive zone, while another petition filed by green activist Zoru Bathena had pleaded that the area be given the status of a floodplain.

A Sena corporator Yashwant Jadhav had also moved court against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which is under the control of the Sena itself, for having given the permission to hack the trees. The court has imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Jadhav.

Also read: Mumbai Citizens Rue Loss of Hundreds of Old Trees Because of Metro Construction

Activists have accused the MMRCL of flouting rules and going ahead with the felling of trees even when a mandatory 15- days’ notice between grant of approval to cut trees and the actual cutting was not met. Oppositions have also accused the BJP of violating the ongoing Model Code of Conduct in the state by passing a new order and allowing its execution.

Photo: By special arrangement

The MMRCL chief Ashwini Bhide, however, claimed that it was false propaganda spread against the high court’s order. “A new false propaganda is in the air that 15 days’ notice is required after a tree authority order is uploaded on the website. This is absolutely baseless. Tree Authority order is issued on September 13, 2019. Fifteen days are over on September 28. Action was awaited until the honourable high court’s verdict was out,” Bhide wrote on her personal Twitter account.

Amid the ongoing outrage over tree felling, Union minister Prakash Javadekar in Lucknow said that the cutting of trees for the Mumbai Metro was similar to what was done in Delhi during the capital’s city’s metro rail construction phase.

“Today, Delhi Metro is the world’s best metro. But how did it develop? We had to cut at least 20-25 trees for one metro station. People protested then too; in the same way, they are protesting now. Later, we had planted five trees in place of one. And now, in 15-17 years, they have grown. We successfully constructed 271 stations, too. In this way, Delhi’s forest cover also grew and public transport service was provided to the 30 lakh Delhiites. This is how our ministry works. We work on development along with taking care of our environment,” he said.