Trmming trees without the BMC's nod could land you in court, as the secretary and chairman of a housing society located in the JVPD scheme area of Vile Parle will discover this week
Members of Nirmal Punyadarshan Chandra Villa are charged under the 1975 Urban Areas Act. Pic/Nimesh Dave
Trmming trees without the BMC's nod could land you in court, as the secretary and chairman of a housing society located in the JVPD scheme area of Vile Parle will discover this week. The two are going to be put on trial for trimming three branches each of two almond trees and two of a peepal tree in August last year, without taking permission from the BMC.
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The members of the Nirmal Punyadarshan Chandra Villa cooperative housing society are facing action under Section 8 and 21 of the Maharashtra (Urban areas) Protection and Prevention Act, 1975. According to the Act, if a person if found cutting trees without any permission from the civic body, then they could face a penalty of maximum Rs 5,000 and imprisonment for one week to one year. The FIR was filed at the Juhu Police Station on January 12, and the police have recently finished preparing a chargesheet against the society secretary and chairman, which they will file before magistrate court in two days.
The action comes after Jaynish Shah, a resident, alerted a BMC tree officer about the society cutting branches without permission
Complaint to tree officer
Soon after the chargesheet is filed, the trial will begin before the court. The action comes after Jaynish Shah, a resident, alerted a BMC tree officer in August last year about the housing society illegally cutting the branches of three trees located in the society premises, without any permission from the BMC.
Shah said, "After I found out that the trimming was done illegally, I filed a complaint to the junior tree officer of the K-West (Andheri) ward office. After visiting the site, the officer found it had been trimmed after which, he filed a complaint in the Juhu police station on August 20 against the secretary of society." Following the complaint, the Juhu police station finally registered an FIR against the housing society's secretary Praful Shah, on January 12, according to it society members cut three branches each of two almond trees and two branches of a peepal tree.
Chargesheet in two days
After investigation, in the last week of March, the police summoned Shah and chairman Bharat Thakkar for recording their statements. An official from Juhu Police station who is handling the case said, "In the next two days, we will file a chargesheet before the magistrate court."
When mid-day contacted Shah, he said, "I was called by the police for [recording a] statement recently. Some society members trimmed the trees since the branches had entered the balcony of a house. This had created a lot of problems like mosquitoes and rats in their house. We trim the trees before monsoon every year. The neighbouring societies also do the trimming before monsoon." When asked about the trimming of trees without permission, he said, "I don't know about that and we do carry trimming without permission, since they are in our society premises." All Thakkar had to say before he hung up on the call was, "I am out of town; call me after Monday."
"Offences like illegal cutting of trees in co-operative housing societies should be taken seriously. The culprits should not be pardoned and also, the government and police officials who do not take action against reporting of such serious offences should be taken to task through strict disciplinary action," added Shah.
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