New Delhi, Dec 12 (PTI) The National Green Tribunal (NGT)has slapped a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on an individual forcutting down 228 trees on a private land falling in the MangarBani forest area in Haryana's Faridabad district.
A bench headed by Justice Jawad Rahim said the land wasowned by Dev Raj Kamboj and governed under a notificationissued under Sections 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land PreservationAct by the State of Haryana where "no non-forest activity waspermissible".
The green panel said that Kamboj was responsible for theillegal activity and directed him to deposit the money withthe Haryana Forest Department within a month.
"It is difficult to accept the plea of innocence putforward by Respondent No. 5 (Kamboj) that he does not know whohas felled the trees and keeping mind the fact that he isadmittedly the owner of the land and therefore had legal dutyto ensure that no illegal activity is committed upon it...
"An activity, and non-forest activity, which isprohibited on the land in question has been allowed to be doneand consequently it is irrelevant who has done it. Whatmatters is who has failed to ensure such activity is notconducted?" the bench said.
The judgement came on a plea filed by Lt. Col. (retd)Sarvadaman Singh Oberoi, alleging that the land owner hasalmost chopped off 1,000 trees on the site in question and wasmaking attempts to clear the vegetation.
The plea, filed through advocates Rahul Choudhary andMeera Gopal, had also claimed construction of 'kaccha' road bythe owner on a large part of the forest area of Mangar villageof Faridabad.
According to the applicant, the site was half-a-kilometreaway from the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in Delhi andpart of forest between sanctuary and Mangar forest.
Kamboj opposed the plea, saying there were no trees inthe area which he owned except for "Mexican Mexquite" treespecies known as "Vilayati Kikar" and that he was not involvedin any tree felling.
According to him, some unknown persons in connivance withthe forest department trespassed on his land and a complaintin this regard was lodged but no action has been taken. PTIPKSSMN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.