Economic Times: New Delhi: Wednesday,
February 01, 2017.
Delhi High
Court today sought response of Delhi government on why it has not complied with
a 2011 Central Information Commission (CIC) order to display information of the
environmental cost, including the number of trees felled, of each development
project in the city.
Justice
Sanjeev Sachdeva issued notice to Delhi government departments of forest,
wildlife, environment and urban development and sought their replies on a plea
seeking implementation of the August 5, 2011 order of the CIC.
The matter
was listed for further hearing on March 3.
The petition
was filed by a lawyer who has claimed that when he had in 2013 sought, under
the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the reason for non-implementation, he was
informed by the forest department that the CIC order was not complied with as
it "was not traceable on account of a fire accident" in April 2012.
The
department, however, had said that all concerned divisions have been asked to
comply with the order of the Commission, advocate Aditya Prasad had said in his
petition.
Thereafter,
in 2015 when he again sought details of implementation under RTI, he was told
that the divisional office has not received the CIC order.
Prasad has
contended that even as the current environmental situation in the city was
deteriorating day by day, the authorities were displaying a "lackadaisical
attitude" by "wilfully disobeying" the order of the CIC.
CIC, in its
order, had directed the departments to publish on their websites from September
1, 2011 onwards, the environmental cost, including number of trees felled, of
the projects along with details of compensatory plantations.
Information
to be displayed also included "details of permissions given for felling
and pruning trees along with applicant details, number of trees, reasons for
approval and location, among others".
As per the
petition, the departments also had to display "details of complaints
received on the tree helpline, together with details of number of trees cut,
location, status of complaint and status of prosecution undertaken", if
any.