The Supreme Court has said that cutting a large number of trees is a bigger crime than the killing of humans. The court imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on a person for each tree illegally cut.
A bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjwal Bhuiyan made this comment rejecting the person’s petition, who cut 454 trees in the protected ‘Taj Trapezium Zone’.
The bench said, “There should be no pity in the environment. Cutting a large number of trees is also heinous with the killing of a human being. ”
The apex court said that it would take at least 100 years to re -generate the same kind of green area from 454 trees cut without permission.
The Supreme Court accepted the report of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC), in which a person named Shivshankar Aggarwal recommended a fine of Rs 1 lakh per tree for cutting 454 trees in Dalmia Farm in Mathura-Vrindavan.
On behalf of Aggarwal, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said that he had accepted his mistake but the court refused to reduce the fine.
It said that Aggarwal should be allowed to plant saplings at the nearby site and the contempt petition filed against him will be settled only after compliance.
The apex court also withdrew its 2019 order in which the need to obtain permission to cut trees on non-one and private land within the ‘Taj Trapezium Zone’ was removed.
