Felled trees at Indian Botanic Garden

A three-member panel appointed by the high court to probe the alleged felling of 100 trees at Indian Botanic Garden submitted its preliminary report on Friday. The report, however, will not be made public now.

“We do not want the report to be made public at this moment,” the division bench of Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar and Justice S. Banerjee said.

The Centre, too, acting on a report filed by the state forest department, had asked the CBI to probe the complaint. A sleuth has visited the garden and collected some documents.

The court hinted during the hearing that something was wrong in the way the trees had been felled and in the subsequent auction of the trunks.

“This is a serious issue,” the chief justice said, while directing the authorities of the Shibpur garden to file a report by December 6 stating their stand on the observations made in the report of the court-appointed panel.

Metro has learnt that an outsider, who took part in the auction, was instrumental in the felling of the trees.

The high court had on November 24 set up the panel comprising city police chief Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti; the principal chief conservator of forest, Atanu Raha; and lawyer Anindya Mitra to probe the complaint.