‘Where is the Greenery?’: High Court Slams Nagpur’s Lost Status, Orders Joint Inspection of London Street Project

In a stern reality check for the city’s urban planners, the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court expressed deep concern over the rapid depletion of Nagpur’s green cover, stating bluntly that the city can no longer rightfully claim its historic “Green City” title.

The scathing observations were made by a division bench of Justice Anil Kilor and Justice Raj Wakode during a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) hearing regarding massive tree felling for the controversial London Street development project.

The Court fiercely criticized the standard administrative practice of “compensatory plantation,” where mature trees are chopped down in residential areas and saplings are planted miles away.

“Planting trees elsewhere does not restore the ecological balance of the area where mature trees have been cut,” the Bench noted. “Residents of localities where trees are removed are deprived of immediate environmental benefits like shade, cleaner air, lower temperatures, and local biodiversity. These losses cannot be offset merely by planting saplings at distant locations.”

High Court Orders Surprise Joint Inspection of London Street

The legal clash centers around the London Street road project, which connects Khamla-Sneh Samvardhak Road with Jaitala Road.

Project developer Prafullved Infra Pvt Ltd had claimed that it was physically impossible to plant compensatory trees along London Street due to a complete lack of available space. Refusing to take the developer’s word at face value, the High Court ordered an immediate, independent physical verification.

• The Mandate: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and the appointed Amicus Curiae must jointly inspect a 1-kilometer stretch of London Street.
• The Penalty: If the inspection team finds any viable vacant space, the developer will be legally mandated to plant 1,000 trees directly within the affected locality.

Discrepancies Expose Fake Plantation Claims

The hearing also exposed massive inflation in the numbers reported by the developer regarding their environmental compliance:

• The Claim: The developer’s affidavit asserted that nearly 10,000 trees had already been planted to compensate for earlier deforestation.
• The Reality: An independent civic field inspection conducted on April 22 and 23 revealed that only 4,213 trees actually existed at the designated site, out of which only 3,986 were alive.