HC bans cutting of trees for Tivim cricket stadium

PANJIM, AUG 26
The Bombay High Court at Goa has disposed off a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed challenging the permission granted by Ministry of Environment & Forest (MoEF) for felling 2500 trees for construction of international cricket stadium in Tivim with a direction to Goa Cricket Association (GCA) that no trees shall be cut until it obtains all construction clearances.
The Goa Foundation, an environmental NGO, along with three farmers Uday Mavlankar, Gorak Mavlankar and Ashok Parab in April this year had challenged the forest clearances granted to the Director of Sports on grounds that the forest conservation guidelines did not permit such diversions.
While disposing off a PIL, the Division Bench comprising Justices A S Oka and F M Reis has also directed MoEF which has already initiated inquiry into the forest clearance, to consider the representation of the petitioners on all the issues raised in the petition.
Meanwhile, the High Court has directed that no trees from the forest be felled.
The Court has taken on records the undertaking given by the GCA that no part of the forest land shall be used for constructing any type of commercial project including malls, hotels, etc.
The petitioners stated that while they were not against an international cricket stadium, they were firmly against the felling of 4.4 hectares of forest for putting up commercial establishments, including hotels and malls.
The petitioners have also pointed out that the Town Planning Department in 2007 had refused an NOC for change of land use under the Regional Plan 2001 for the proposed stadium as this was against the policy in force.
The petitioners alleged that in order to bypass this order, the Sports Department had filed an application under Section 16/16A of the Town Planning Act for exemption of the project from the Regional Plan.
This action was also challenged by the petitioner. As no order passed on this application was placed before the court by the government, the Court in its judgement has permitted the issue to be kept open for adjudication in future.