{"id":27850,"date":"2020-06-17T21:10:46","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T15:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=27850"},"modified":"2020-06-17T21:10:46","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T15:40:46","slug":"russian-poplars-and-covid-19-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=27850","title":{"rendered":"Russian Poplars and Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HC Warns Govt Of \u2018Punitive\u2019 Action If Report Not Filed By June 23<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Srinagar<\/strong>: Jammu and Kashmir High Court has warned authorities of \u201cpunitive\u201d action if the report by an expert committee on aspects relating to the Russian Poplar trees including the impact of the pollen and fluff from these trees on the spread of the novel coronavirus was not filed before it by June 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hearing a Public Interest Litigation, a division bench of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Vinod Chatterji Koul warned the authorities after Additional Advocate General Aseem Sawhney said that he has received oral instructions that the needful has been done by the General Administration Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is truly unfortunate that we have not been informed about what is the \u2018needful\u2019 which is done,\u201d the court said, adding, \u201cIn case the action taken report is not filed before us before the next date of hearing, we shall be constrained to take a strict view of the matter and pass punitive orders against the authorities concerned\u201d. The case has been listed for fruiter consideration on June 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Additional Advocate General Amit Gupta had informed the court that the General Administration Department has taken a view on the report submitted by the Expert Committee and the same stands forwarded to the Department of Law and the Forest Department for compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNeither report of expert committee nor the decision taken thereon has been placed before us,\u201d the court had said previously and sought the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Headed by Dr. Mohit Gera (IFS), Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and HoFF, the members of panel included Farooq Ahmad Gillani (Chief Conservator of Forests, Kashmir), Dr. Mushtaq Siddiqi (Vice-Chancellor, Islamic University of Science & Technology), Dr. Naveed Nazir Shah (HoD, Pulmonary Medicine, Government Medical College, Srinagar), Zubair Ahmad Shah (Conservator of Forests, Srinagar), Dr. Tariq. H. Masoodi (Dean, Department of Forestry, SKUAST, Kashmir) and Mehraj-ud-din Malik (Regional Director, Social Forestry, Kashmir).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel was formed following the Court\u2019s order on April 10 last, directing the Chief Secretary to constitute it to examine the impact of the pollen and fluff from the poplar trees and the desirability of felling poplar trees amid coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court had passed the orders days after almost all deputy commissioners in Kashmir ordered axing of the \u201cfemale\u201d poplar trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSignificantly a grave error is pointed out which is to the effect that female poplar trees have been directed by the authorities to be felled on account of the \u201cpollen\u201d generated by them. This by itself is a basic mistake,\u201d the court had observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPollen is generated by the male of the specie and not by the female tree. Therefore felling of the female of the Species would not have any impact,\u201d the court had said as per GNS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was also pointed out, the court observed, that the fluff carries the seed and not pollen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe two reports brought to our notice refer to views of several experts doubting the correctness of the statement that the fluff generated by the poplars could be effecting respiratory diseases or would impact spread of the COVID-19 infection,\u201d the court had observed, adding, \u201cThe Committee which is constituted would examine all aspects relating to the matter including the impact of the pollen and fluff from the poplar trees, the desirability of felling poplar trees (also called Russian Poplar) and related issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Committee, the court had said, shall suggest all necessary steps, including felling of trees, if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Secretaries, Health and Forest Departments, were directed by the court to take a \u201cconsidered view\u201d on the committee\u2019s report and place the same before the Chief Secretary for consideration at the earliest. \u201cThe final recommendations shall be placed before us at the earliest (now before June 26),\u201d the court added. (GNS)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HC Warns Govt Of \u2018Punitive\u2019 Action If Report Not Filed By June 23 Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir High Court has warned authorities of \u201cpunitive\u201d action if the report by an expert committee on aspects relating to the Russian Poplar trees including the impact of the pollen and fluff from these trees on the spread of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}