MP High Court closes 8-year-old tree felling pleas, mandates planting
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has disposed of two long-pending writ petitions seeking restrictions on tree felling across the state, noting that the 2015 notification challenged by the petitioners had already been struck down by a Full Bench of the court.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Pradeep Mittal was hearing Writ Petition No. 26802 of 2018, filed by Anand, and Writ Petition No. 13864 of 2019, filed by Vivek Kumar Sharma, against the State of Madhya Pradesh and others.
The petitions had sought directions to stop tree cutting, protect green cover, take action against illegal felling and quash the notification dated September 24, 2015, which the petitioners alleged was harmful to ecological balance.
The bench recorded that the principal challenge had already been settled. A Full Bench of the High Court, while considering the same petitions, had on March 1, 2025, struck down the 2015 notification.
What remained was an additional issue raised in Sharma’s petition regarding the cutting of trees for road widening and construction of new highways across Madhya Pradesh. The petitioner had alleged that trees were being felled for such projects without adequate compensatory plantation.
The court, however, found that there was no concrete data before it showing how many trees had been cut for road projects or how many had been planted in return.
Observing that the petition was filed in 2019 and that significant development had taken place since then, including construction and widening of several highways, the bench said the issue could not be examined effectively without updated figures.
The court therefore disposed of the petitions while giving the petitioners liberty to approach it again if they collect specific data on tree felling and compensatory plantation.
The bench also directed both petitioners to plant 25 fruit-bearing trees each in areas identified by the Municipal Corporation and submit a compliance report.
With these directions, the court closed the nearly eight-year-old litigation over the 2015 notification, while keeping open the possibility of fresh proceedings on the road-widening plantation issue if supported by detailed evidence.
