The municipal court on Wednesday sentenced five persons to a month-long imprisonment and also fined them of Rs 5,000 each for cutting trees without obtaining the requisite permissions from the civic authorities.
On September 11, 2012, several trees included Teak, Mango, Coconut, Lemon and Jamun on the premises of the Dashanam Gosavi Sanstha in Somwar Peth were cut by some people without permission, said municipal prosecutor of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).
They said an employee of the PMC’s garden department came to know about the illegal activity and filed a police complaint.
A case was filed against the officials of the organization and they have followed it up to its logical conclusion. They really hope that the punishment will work as a deterrent to others, said tree officer of PMC.
The court has awarded one-month imprisonment to the five persons including, adding that they have also been fined Rs 5,000 each for the act.
They said the main problem with preventing illegal cutting of trees was that people do it with impunity. It is generally believed that you can cut a tree and there will be no consequences. They have decided that from now on they shall be tracking these cases thoroughly.
They said that there are over 60 similar cases pending before the court.
They hope the order today will send a strong message and put an end to the menace of illegal tree cutting.
Source: timesofindia, Mar’14
