HC instructs the forest department to give heritage status to Himayat Bagh trees

FEB 28, 2022

Aurangabad: The Aurangabad bench of Bombay high court has asked the forest department to give heritage status to the trees at Himayat Bagh.
“The process shall be initiated immediately and progress in this regard would be placed on record before the next date,” the two-member bench of Justice S V Gangapurwala and Justice S G Dige said, while scheduling the next hearing of the PIL that seeks biodiversity and heritage tags for Himayat Bagh under relevant laws on March 30.
In July, last year, the state government had amended the Maharashtra (Urban Areas) Preservation and Protection of Trees Act, 1975, giving heritage status to 50-year-old trees.
While any tree, belonging to any species, with an estimated age of 50 years or more is categorised as a heritage tree, the state government, in September 2021, had also spelt out norms on how to calculate the age of a tree.
Himayat Bagh, one-of-its-kind combination of biodiversity hotspot and heritage site, has many old trees of tamarind, mango, jamun, and kawath (wood apple) among other indigenous species. The site also has several shrubs, creepers and climbers with some of them considered to have great medicinal value.
When contacted, deputy conservator of forest Arun Patil said his department would read the latest court ruling and act as per directive issued by the judiciary.
While petitioner advocate Sandhesh Hange, who is appearing as party-in-person in aforesaid PIL, placed on record the research report regarding biological diversity of birds, reptiles ad butterflies at Himayat Bagh, the Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Agricultural University told the court that it was in process of collecting botanical data and the same would be completed within a period of four weeks.
Stating that it expected joint efforts from all the authorities to protect Himayat Bagh area, the court said: “We hope and trust that steps will be taken expeditiously and the decision will be taken regarding declaration of entire land of Himayat Bagh garden as biodiversity under the provisions of Biological Diversity Act, 2002. So also, the decision for declaration of Himayat Bagh garden as protected area under the provisions of the Maharashtra Ancient Monument and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1960.”