Do away with seemai karuvelam trees in 21 days: Madurai Bench of the Madras HC
Madurai: The Madurai Bench of the Madras high court on Tuesday directed collectors of 13 districts that fall under the jurisdiction of this court to removeseemai karuvelam trees (propospis julifora) completely in the entire district within next 21 days.
When the additional public prosecutor P Govindarajan told the division bench Justices A Selvam and P Kalaiyarasan that only 40 per cent of seemai karuvelam have been removed from headquarters of these districts following its earlier order, the court directed district principal judges to inspect the areas in the respective districts and submit a report.
The court also directed collectors to depute the land surveyor, revenue inspectors and village administration officials to assist the district judges during the inspection.
After MDMK leader Vaiko filed a PIL seeking the intervention of the court for the removal of seemai keravelam in 13 districts as it was causing major threat to ground water resources and harm to the environment, the court in its earlier order passed on December 20 last year directed the district collectors to weed out the trees from water bodies, river courses and all other places in the district headquarters in the first phase. The court also asked them to file the status report.
However, when the case came up for hearing today, MDMK leader Vaiko informed the court that seemai karuvelam have not been completely removed.
When the court asked the public prosecutor for the status report, Govindarajan said that only four district collectors have submitted the report, and he was preparing the reports for four more other districts. District collectors of Tiruneveli and Kanyakumari didn’t submit the report, he told the court.
However he added that nearly 40 per cent of the trees had been removed in all this districts. Recording that the authorities didn’t comply with the court order, Justice Selvam directed the collectors to completely remove seemai karuvelam in the entire district and file a report.
Stating that it would be viewed seriously, the judges said appropriate action would also been if fail to comply with this direction. The court posted the next hearing on January 31.
