Tree felling: court rejects state’s plea against Chembur resident

Kamble had pleaded guilty in 2004,before a Kurla Metropolitan magistrate,who imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 on him for the offence and disposed of the case. However,the state in 2008 filed an appeal for enhancement of the fine amount stating that a fine should be levied for cutting each tree and shrub as chopping off each one constituted an offence.

Interestingly,the appeal has been filed after four years and 174 days. The defence of the state was that the appeal was stuck due to delay in the administrative process. The police,in their appeal,said “The public prosecutor department of Kurla court took three years to send a proposal for appeal to the Law and Judiciary Department and the department also took another four months to give the go-ahead for filing the appeal.”

Investigating officer Dilip Raut of the Chembur police station said “The complainant and the accused in the case are residents of the same society and it’s their internal fight that made them approach the police. Since the crime was not of a serious nature,we had to go through the complaint over and again. As of now,I haven’t decided whether we should appeal in the High Court,” he said.