• Source:JND
Add as a preferred

A fact-finding committee led by three ministers and a secretary was established by the Delhi government on Saturday in response to the 'illegal' removal of more than 1,100 trees in the Satbari area of the national capital's southern ridge, according to PTI.

A meeting concerning the Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) failure to provide a status report in the Supreme Court's contempt case regarding the unlawful removal of trees without authorisation was convened at the secretariat.

According to a statement from the minister's office on the meeting minutes, the committee, which is made up of the three ministers Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj, and Imran Hussain, will present its findings to Gopal Rai, the environment and forest minister of Delhi.

The top court, which is hearing a suo-motu contempt case against DDA vice-chairman Subhasish Panda regarding the same matter, will receive the report.

VK Saxena, the lieutenant governor of Delhi, is in charge of DDA. "The e-mails of DDA engineers reveal that the trees were cut on the verbal instructions of the Delhi Lieutenant Governor," Rai claimed.

Rai added that the Kejriwal government is dedicated to preserving and expanding Delhi's green space and that the fact-finding committee was established as a result of the forest department's failure to provide a report by June 28.

The SC referred to the unlawful tree-cutting as a "brazen act" during its Wednesday hearing on the contempt case. Declaring it "sheer disingenuity" that the DDA could not determine whether the LG had ordered the tree chopping, the court asked Panda to review official documents and provide information on this matter, as reported by the Hindu.