Supreme Court to hear Aarey matter today

Mumbai: The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the tree-felling situation in Aarey Colony, and a special bench — which was constituted on Sunday — will be hearing the matter today.

A student delegation had submitted a petition before the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi requesting him to exercise his special jurisdiction to order a stay on the axing of trees that is being carried out by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) with permission of the Brihanmumbai Muni-cipal Corporation (BMC) at the verdant area to build a car shed for the Metro-3 corridor. The students stated that there was not much time left to file an appeal petition as the area might get cleared by then.

A notice was posted on the Supreme Court website on Sunday about holding the urgent hearing. “Take notice that a special bench has been constituted to hear the matter tomorrow i.e October 7, 2019 at 10.00 AM on the basis of a letter dated October 6, 2019 addressed by (law student) Rishav Ranjan with regard to felling of trees in Aarey forest, state of Maharashtra which has been registered as a public interest litigation,” the notice said.

Meanwhile, over 2,000 trees, including age-old varieties, were chopped in the past two days.

Following an agitation over the issue and subsequent crackdown on citizens and activists on Saturday, 29 arrested protesters were released on bail and a fine of '7,000 was imposed on each of them as well as the condition that they have to visit the police station once every fortnight. “Till filing surety the applicants be released on their depositing provisional cash surety of '7,000 for one month in the police stations concerned. Police have to submit the sureties in the court as the present bail application was filed before the holiday court (sic),” stated the order.

Also, tribals of Aarey Colony said that Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which empowers an executive magistrate to prohibit an assembly of more than four people in an area, that was imposed in the wake of the protest, has not been lifted from the area and adjoining places and they have to show ID to enter the area.

Prakash Bhoir, a tribal whose wife was arrested on Saturday, said, “The curfew-like situation still prevails in Aarey. We have to show IDs while entering Aarey where we have our homes. We fail to understand what crime we’ve committed by planting and trying to save trees. We have planted 500 trees.”

Helen Lopez, whose son was taken into judicial custody on Saturday, said he was being treated like a criminal. “What message is the government trying to send to the young generation,” she asked.