The bench went on, “We are putting you on guard. If you try to defend such a thing, the chief secretary and all those officers involved will be in trouble.”
It added, “You should not have indulged [in] this. Taking advantage of a long weekend, you do all these things.”
Referring to the photographs, the bench said the authorities had managed to arrange dozens of bulldozers to fell the trees.
For felling trees, the bench observed, the state was required to take requisite permission.
“If you had bonafides, then why did you not start it on a Monday? Why only started it at the beginning of a long weekend?” the bench asked.
Singhvi, who said the state has filed a counter affidavit in the court, argued he would deal with these aspects during his arguments in the matter.
The bench observed it was the state’s choice whether it wanted its chief secretary and half a dozen officers to be shifted to a temporary prison to be constructed at the site.
One of the advocates in the matter said if restoration of forest has to be done, it has to be done during the upcoming monsoon period.
“The state’s response that they have filed, they have only tried to defend their action and they are saying they want to go forward with that IT construction,” the advocate said.
He said no restoration plan was placed before the court by the state.
Singhvi referred to the counter affidavit and said he would try to persuade the court that both ecology and IT could go hand in hand.
