Aarey Colony Tree Felling Reaches SC: What Now That SC Has Spoken?

Today, we’re picking up where we left off in the Aarey Colony story which has come to dominate headlines.

(Image: Altered by The Quint)

In the last episode of the Big Story, we spoke about what was going on in the Aarey Colony tree felling effort. Since the last time we spoke on Friday, the Bombay High Court had said it would allow the cutting and the transplanting of 2,646 trees in Mumbai’s Aarey Colony, and that, as was held by a previous high court decision, Aarey wasn’t a forest area.

Things have escalated rather rapidly from there, and the Supreme Court has quite a bit to do with it, as does the fact that about 2,000 of those trees are already gone!

Today, we’re picking up where we left off in the Aarey Colony story which has come to dominate headlines.

A lot happened over the weekend, including many protesters being arrested. But, in what can be called a slight victory (of sorts) for the environment and activists, the Supreme Court has stepped in and stayed the plan to chop down trees in Mumbai’s Aarey Colony. Well, more trees, to be accurate.

However, the damage has already been done.

We’ll hear from the people who protested and opposed the tree cutting, the Maharashtra state government and its allies, as well as The Quint’s own legal editor, Vakasha Sachdev.