The Supreme Court on Friday told the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s Tree Authority that no trees can be cut in Mumbai’s Aarey area without its permission, Live Law reported.

The court will hear petitions on March 5 against the felling of trees in Aarey by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited to construct a car shed. The corporation operates the Line 3 of the Mumbai Metro.

The metro rail operator informed the court that no fresh proposal to cut more trees in the area was pending.

The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation had cut 2,144 trees at Aarey for the construction of a car shed and additional 212 trees for the ramps leading to it, Live Law reported in March 2023.

Several residents, environmental activists and students have protested against the felling of trees in what is considered the last remaining green lung of Mumbai.

In October 2019, a group of law students had written to Ranjan Gogoi, the chief justice of India at the time, asking him to intervene and stop the felling of trees at Aarey Colony. The Supreme Court had then ordered a status quo on the matter.

In November 2019, the Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra stopped work on the Aarey car shed.

In October 2020, Thackeray, the chief minister at the time, announced that 800 acres of land in Aarey Colony would be declared a reserve forest and that the car shed for the metro project in the area would be relocated to the suburb of Kanjurmarg.

However, after Eknath Shinde took over as the chief minister in 2022, he overturned Thackeray’s decision to shift the shed out of Aarey.

In April 2023, the Supreme Court imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation for seeking permission to fell additional 177 trees at Aarey despite the court’s earlier order allowing it to cut only 84 trees.

The bench had observed that it was “improper” on the part of the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation to approach the Tree Authority when it knew that the correct course of action was to move the Supreme Court.

However, the court allowed for the cutting of trees, saying that denying permission would bring the public project to a standstill, PTI reported.