P&H High Court says Punjab's new law on tree felling is draconian, will destroy the State

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Saturday questioned the recently enacted Punjab Protection of Trees Act and urged the State to reconsider the law before the Court examines a pending legal challenge to it [Praneet Kaur v State of Punjab and Others]

A bench of Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor termed the law as draconian and said the law permits felling of trees subject to payment of money.

Such a law will destroy the State, the bench added.

"Every State, every government also wants the protection of environment and felling of trees is something which has to be viewed with a lot more seriousness. Your provision, unfortunately, only says that 'you apply for permission, permission granted, deemed permission. At the most, money pay'. This will be destroying your State. We will say so, we have absolutely no difficulty when we are called upon to examine the merits of this particular legislation. We may prima facie indicate because brother [Justice Kapoor] has gone through all the provisions, we can't allow this kind of a draconian legislation...," the bench said.

The Court highlighted that it was already seized of the matter related to tree felling in Punjab when the State notified the legislation in September.

The Court added it was ready with a judgment – detailed guidelines for the appropriate authorities – but in view of the new legislation, it wants the State to have a relook at the issues.

A government counsel said that he will seek instructions by Monday. Considering the submission, the Court passed the following order,

"We are sure that the State of Punjab would be equally interested in protection of environment and therefore appropriate instructions would be furnished to the Ld. counsel for State of Punjab to be placed before the Court on Monday."

In December 2025, the Court had passed significant directions in a batch of public interest litigation petitions (PILs) primarily challenging the move to fell 251 trees in Mohali district. The Court then ordered that no tree shall be cut in Punjab without its prior permission until further orders.

Since then, a large number of applications were filed before the Court for permission to cut trees. The Court then extended its intervention to Haryana, considering that forest cover in both the States is almost at the bottom of the national figures.

"As per the India State of Forest Report, 2023, tree and forest cover over Punjab is 3.67% while for Haryana it is 3.65%, which are both drastically below the national average of 25.17% and far below the 33% benchmark envisaged under the National Forest Policy, 1988," the Court recently noted.

The new legislation, which allegedly removes the previous safeguards and permits tree cutting simply upon deposit of certain charges, then came to be challenged by way of an application in the pending matter.

The Court was informed that executive officers of local urban bodies have been declared as tree protection officers despite the fact that they themselves seek permission for the cutting of trees in most cases.

While the Court granted time to Punjab government to reconsider the issue, the Court also recorded Haryana government's assurance that it will re-examine the provisions of its own draft law which is substantially modeled on the legislation introduced by State of Punjab.

Haryana government said it would finalize the proposed legislation only after carefully examining the guidelines issued by the Court on the subject.