Karnataka High Court wants new panel to look into tree felling for metro work

The high court on Thursday directed the University of Agricultural Sciences (Gandhi Krishi Vignan Kendra) to appoint an expert committee to look into the felling of trees for the metro project.

The committee will submit a report in three weeks.

Continuing the hearing into the PIL filed by Dattareya T Devare and another petitioner, a division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Nataraj Rangaswamy directed to form a committee consisting of experts from the Department of Forestry and Environmental Science of GKVK.

'Suggest solutions'

The committee will look into the condition of the trees translocated so far and also make suggestions on the trees proposed to be translocated.

"It would be appropriate to appoint an agency to first examine whether the trees have been properly translocated, whether the places chosen were appropriate and whether the trees translocated will survive and grow.

"The second issue is to determine whether any of the remaining trees can be saved taking into consideration the metro alignment," the bench ordered.

If the committee finds that the translocation was done unscientifically, it will have to suggest a solution and method on how to save the trees, the court said.

The committee should also examine whether any of the remaining 59 trees can be saved with the existing alignment of the metro.

In the last hearing, the bench had expressed displeasure over the functioning of the earlier expert committee and asked the government to suggest a third agency of repute for the job.

The bench had said that the earlier expert committee had not applied its mind on the question whether a particular tree will survive at the place where it is sought to be translocated.