The Karnataka High Court on Thursday directed the experts of the Department of Forestry, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru, to examine the status of translocated trees uprooted for the metro project and the manner of translocating another 55 trees.
The UAS-B experts will have to find out whether the translocation has been done in a proper and scientific manner, and whether any of the 59 more trees, identified for uprooting, can be saved while continuing with the existing alignment of the metro project. While 55 trees have been marked for translocation after uprooting, the remaining four trees are required to be cut.
If no identified trees can be saved, then the experts will have to suggest the manner and place for scientific translocation of these trees, the court said.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Nataraj Rangaswamy passed the order during the hearing of a PIL petition filed by Dattaraya T. Devare and Bangalore Environment Trust.
The issue has been referred to experts in the UAS-B as the High Court was not satisfied with the work done by a committee of experts, constituted by the State government last year on the directions of the court, to examine whether any trees identified for felling, can be saved.
The Bench said that the experts from the UAS-B will have to examine the findings of the committee of experts as well and the objections raised by the petitioners.
As the petitioners filed applications questioning the plan to fell around 8,500 trees in Bengaluru rural district for widening of the roads by the Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd, the Bench issued notice to the KRDCL and adjorurned further hearing to July 27, by which time the experts from the UAS-B will have to submit their report to the court.
