PANJIM: When Leading Hotel’s sent their bouncers- muscle men who threatened to intimidate- to Tiracol in the middle of the night on May 14/15, to destroy trees and create a pathway to the site of their villa and golf course project, they did not have the permission to cut a single tree.
In documents accessed by Herald, Leading Hotels, committed the following illegalities and violations, and that too with bouncers thrown in to prevent any one coming in their way of illegally destroying trees when they had no permission to do so, on the night of May14/15:
1) They did not just illegally slaughter trees when their tree felling permission dated July 8, 2014 had expired, but they went back on their own assurance to the National Green tribunal that they would “not undertake any felling of trees without permission from the concerned forest authority and as and when the permission for the same will be sought, the concerned forest authority shall consider all parameters…” (Extract of Affidavit to NGT Pune by P. Ravi, authorised representative of Leading Hotels)
2) Leading Hotels was aware on the night of May 14/15 that it did not have the permission to fell a single tree. In point number 4 of the same affidavit referred to in point number 1 above, P Ravi of Leading Hotels states “ I say that Respondent no 7 (Leading Hotels) was granted tree felling permission dated 8/7/2014 by the Deputy Conservator of Forests for felling of 155 trees. The permission is no longer in force and therefore the question of Respondent no 7 felling trees on the basis of the said permission dated 8/07/2014 does not arise” (See Evidence 1)
3) Violated the NGT order dated April 16 of Justice V.R Kinagaonkar and Dr Ajay Deshpande stating ‘Status quo to be maintained till lawful permission is granted for tree felling”, to the project proponent. This is even more serious because in an affidavit in the Bombay High Court, in response to the larger challenge to the manner in which Leading hotels received Environment and CRZ clearances, Leading Hotels admitted that the NGT order asked to maintain status quo “to the limited extent of felling of trees till lawful permission for felling of trees was obtained from the appropriate authority”. Inspite of this it did not maintain the status quo on May 14/15 when it destroyed trees in Tiracol in the dead of the night, terrorising villagers.
4) And this is the last nail. In the same affidavit referred to in point 3 above, in fact in the very same paragraph, (Point 2) from where the above reference was taken, Atmaram Ramkrishna Barve, who signed the affidavit of behalf of Leading Hotels states “I state that on 20.05.2015 and on 5.06.2015 (five days and 21 days after the destruction of trees in Tiracol respectively), the applicant/petitioner has obtained permissions from the appropriate authorities for the felling of trees.
If there was ever any doubt if Leading Hotels, backed by Chief Minister Parsekar, did not have permissions to carry out the act of destroying trees in Tiracol with the help of muscle men on May 14/15 2015, their own affidavit in the Bombay High Court, confirms this. The truth always has a way of coming out, in the most unexpected of ways, Mr Parsekar.
