National Green Tribunal
Krunnal Gharre vs Pune Municipal Corporation on 4 September, 2025
Item No.2 (Pune Bench)
BEFORE THE NATIONAL GREEN TRIBUNAL
WESTERN ZONE BENCH, PUNE
[THROUGH PHYSICAL HEARING (WITH HYBRID OPTION)]
ORIGINAL APPLICATION NO.97 OF 2025 (WZ)
Krunnal Gharre ..... Applicant
Versus
Pune Municipal Corporation & Ors. ... Respondents
Date of hearing : 04.09.2025
CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DINESH KUMAR SINGH, JUDICIAL MEMBER
HON'BLE DR. VIJAY KULKARNI, EXPERT MEMBER
Applicant : Applicant present in person
ORDER
1. This application has been filed with the main prayer that the respondent authorities be directed to carry out the pending compensatory plantation for the period March, 2022 to December, 2023 in respondent No.1
- PMC's jurisdiction for 3,40,599 trees with Geotagging within sixty days of the order. They be further directed to ensure submission of tree survival reports every six months for seven years as mandated by law.
2. In the memo of application, it is stated by the applicant that he applied on 04.01.2024 for the information under RTI Act, pertaining to all permissions granted to cut/ transplant trees for the calendar years 2021 to 2023 and details of the number of trees along with address of new trees planted as per the conditions mentioned in permissions, but when no information was received, he filed an appeal before the first Appellate Authority on 13.02.2024. The Tree Authority sent letters to all 15 Tree officers (ward offices) of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), directing them to provide necessary information to the applicant, whereupon requested Page 1 of 5 applicant to personally visit and collect necessary information. Pursuant to that, he visited all ward offices and found that there were only handful record available regarding the compensatory plantation, including the number of trees planted, their locations, etc and that there was no record indicated for mandatory half-yearly compliance reports of the tree health that is to be submitted by the permission holders to the Tree Officer. Further it is mentioned that the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act, 1975 mandates compensatory plantation within 15 days with 15 days left to the discretion to be further extended, from the date of felling of a tree. It also provides that the report shall be submitted to the Tree Officer about wellbeing of the tree plantation every six months for upto three years.
3. Further it is mentioned in the application that the applicant requested all Ward Offices to provide an official response regarding the unavailability of records on compensatory plantation; however, only 5 out of 15 ward offices have responded. All the tree cutting permissions are illegal and void as none of it would specify the location of the compensatory plantation, which was mandatorily required under Section 8(5)(a) of the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Protection and Preservation of Trees Act, 1975. The data with respect to the permissions for tree cutting and transplantation, etc. is given in tabular form, which as under:
Page 2 of 5
4. Further it is mentioned that while 22,362 trees were felled/ transplanted, the Tree Officer has no record of the mandatory compensatory plantation of 3,40,599 trees. The various departments of PMC failed to carry out compensatory plantation of 1,51,444 trees against 13,708 trees, which they were permitted to cut. The Tree Authority arbitrarily granted permissions to these departments to fell tree despite continuous violations of previous permissions and exempted these departments from depositing the required security amount of approximately Rs.13.4 crores. The Tree Officer deliberately manipulated the recorded age of trees in order to evade the jurisdiction of State Tree Authority by showing the age of the trees to be less than 50 years.
5. During argument, the applicant has drawn our attention to compilation of information of total number of 3,40,599 trees, which he has prayed to be directed to be compensatorily planted by the respondents, which begins from page 63 onwards of the paper-book. The applicant, during argument, explained that in column No.11 of the table at page 64 is mentioned , the name of first applicant to whom the permission to plant five number of trees and who was expected to do new plantation of 44 numbers of trees and no deposit was taken from this applicant. Similarly, from the second applicant, whose name is mentioned at page 65 of the paper-book, who was granted permission to cut one tree and 18 number of trees were to be planted by the said applicant and a deposit collected from him was Rs.10,000 and this goes onwards, but at page 1754 of the paper-book is, the name of last man, who was granted permission to plant 12 numbers of trees and against that, total new plantation of 183 trees was to be done and the amount of deposit collected from him was Rs.1,20,000/-. Page 3 of 5
6. The applicant further clarified that this amount of deposit is collected at the rate of Rs.10,000/- per tree to be cut or trans-planted. He has also shown the information sought under the application made under RTI Act, which is at page 18 of the paper-book and response thereto is at page 24 of the paper-book, which is dated 12.03.2024, wherein it is recorded that the reports regarding the new tree plantations have not been received yet. Letters have been sent to the concerned parties regarding the new plantations. Once the reports are received, the information will be shared with the applicant accordingly.
7. Having drawn our attention to the above documentary evidence, it is argued by the applicant that the mandatory compensatory plantation of 3,40,559 trees appears to have not been done by the applicants, who have been granted permissions to cut the trees subject to plantation of number of trees by them. Therefore, a prayer is made that a direction may be issued to the Authorities that said number of trees be planted. He also hammered the lacunae of passing the permissions for cutting trees without indicating the place/s where the compensatory plantation shall be done by the persons who are granted permissions.
8. We may note here that in the Daily "The Times of India" dated 04.07.2025, there is a news item published titled as "Pune's official tree count looks like a hack job: Inconsistent surveys threaten city's flora, say experts; activists raise alarm", wherein following chart is given in respect of number of trees planted regarding the number of trees available in Pune city: Page 4 of 5
9. We direct the applicant to explain as to how, in view of the figure given in the above chart, his application would survive, when the PMC is already saying in the above chart that a large number of trees have been shown to have been planted by them year-wise. Further we find that with respect to PMC, there is census of tree counted available. The applicant orally submits that the reply, which he has received on his application under RTI Act should be given prominence instead of information given in the official website of PMC.
10. We would like to have information to be submitted from the side of PMC as well as applicant in detail. We direct the Registry to issue notice to the respondents, directing them to respond to the queries made by us before we finally admit this application.
11. Put up this matter for next consideration on 16.09.2025.
Dinesh Kumar Singh, JM Dr. Vijay Kulkarni, EM September 04, 2025 ORIGINAL APPLICATION NO.97 OF 2025 (WZ) npj Page 5 of 5