Calcutta High Court said on Wednesday that it would soon carry out an inspection of the measures taken to protect the Victoria Memorial Hall from the ravages of air pollution.

?We will visit the Memorial complex very soon to see how the orders of the court have been carried out by different agencies with regard to development of the environmental atmosphere of the complex,? the judges said.

In an expression of the court?s intent, the judges passed an order directing the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) to seek the advice of the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) while planting trees in the park being set up by the civic authorities in the ground adjacent to the Memorial.

?The green buffer zone in the adjacent ground of the Memorial should protect the environment of the surrounding areas of the monument,? the division bench of Justice A.K. Ganguly and Justice Tapan Kumar Dutt observed in its order.

The court asked the CMC to keep in touch with the joint director of the BSI while planting trees.

The order followed a statement by environment activist Subhas Dutta, petitioner of the case, to the effect that the trees, which are being planted by the CMC, would shed leaves during winter.

?So, the effort to protect the monument from air pollution will not be successful,? Dutta claimed.

During the hearing of the case on Wednesday, both the public works department (PWD) and the West Bengal Pollution Control Board filed two separate reports before the court.

In its report, jointly signed by executive engineer (II) Uday Chand Shit and assistant engineer Chiranjib Roy Chowdhury, the PWD stated that during a visit by its team to the ground adjacent to the Memorial, they found that the CMC had already demolished the newly-constructed pump house in the park.

The department told the court that the toilets in the park would not affect the visibility of the monument, as they were being constructed behind the Memorial?s staff quarters.