The Supreme Court on Tuesday dispensed with the personal appearance of the principal secretary of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and private contractors in a case related to the large-scale felling of trees in Delhi's Ridge area.
A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, which is scheduled to hear a contempt case against the Delhi Development Authority and others over the alleged felling of trees in the southern Ridge's Satbari area, was intimated that the official and the private contractors were present in court in pursuance of an earlier direction.
Senior advocate Anupam Lad Das, appearing for the private contractors, said that they have also filed their responses to the show-cause notices and their personal appearance on Wednesday may be dispensed with.
In the meantime, a counsel for the ministry also made a similar request, seeking an exemption from personal appearance of the principal secretary.
The CJI allowed the plea at this stage. The bench may take up the case on Wednesday.
The contempt case against DDA vice-chairman Subhasish Panda and others over the alleged felling of trees in the Ridge area is now listed before a bench headed by the CJI.Earlier, the matter was being heard by a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan.
The bench headed by Justice Oka had issued a criminal contempt notice against Panda for allowing the large-scale felling of trees in the southern Ridge's Satbari area to construct a road from Chattarpur to the South Asian University.
It had expressed displeasure over a misleading affidavit filed by the vice-chairman and presenting wrong facts in the court.
On July 24, another bench of Justices B R Gavai, P K Mishra and K V Viswanathan took note of two separate contempt proceedings pending before different benches over the felling of trees in Delhi's Ridge area and said it believes in "judicial propriety" and does not want any conflicting orders to be passed.
Maintaining that it would be appropriate if matters about the Ridge were heard by one bench to avoid conflicting orders, it wondered when a bench was already seized of the matter should a subsequent bench have looked into it.
The apex court on March 4 refused permission to the DDA to fell 1,051 trees, saying that their application is very vague.
Being an instrumentality of the state, it is the DDA's duty to first make an attempt to protect the environment by requesting for felling of only those trees which are absolutely mandatory, the court had said.
"They must apply their mind whether alternatives can be examined to save the trees. Moreover, they want to construct a road through a forest. There is no permission obtained under the Forest Act.
"We direct the DDA to re-examine the proposal by employing experts in the field. The exercise to be undertaken by the DDA is necessary for ensuring that while public work is carried out, a minimum number of trees are required to be felled," the apex court had said.
