Dear Friends,
In the year 2011,Myself and other local residents have noticed illegal cutting of Trees by one person say "X "in our locailty.So immediately we (5 persons) gave complaint to Municipality as well as Forest Department. On the next day the Municipal authorities visited the site and fined one unknown person say "Y" without proper enquiry and without knowing truth from the complainants after the news regarding the illegal cutting of Trees complaint is published in the news papers. The Accused X bribed the municipal authorities made them to impose fine Rs 5000 on "Y" and escaped from his mistake. As per the Tree act,only the Forest Department has got authority to impose fines but before the Forest officials visited the site ,the local municipal authorities fined one unkown person Y. As per the rules,The municipal authoriies have authority only to plant and protect theTrees but don't have authority to impose fines on illegal Tree cutting
Taking the advantage of penality imposed on person "Y" the actual culprit "X" sent legal notice through his lawyer to all of us(5 members) as per sections 499,500 and 501 saying that his reputation/character has lost through news papers and asked us to pay Rs 10 lakhs for the payment of damages and Rs 5000 towards charges of the notice.He also mentioned that he has got Reciept of penalty under RTI act from Municipality regarding fining the person "Y". and after one month again we have wrote the Chief conservator of Forests to re-enquire and take action against the actual culprit "X" in this case,but there was no response from the Forest Department. We replied to the legal notice sent by "X' that there is nothing wrong in giving complaint against illegal cutting of Trees,then after we have not recieved any further notices.
Now who's mistake regarding imposing fines in this case?Is it Municipal or Forest Department?I can't understand how the unknown person will pay the fine?Now is there anyway for us to again go into this complaint to make the actual culprit"X" to get punished for his mistake and for escaping and also misguiding his lawyer and sending notice to the complainants? Can we also issue legal notice to the accused "X" to pay us Rs 10 lakhs as compensation for escaping and misguiding his lawyer for sending the notice to us and creating inconvenience to the complainants ? Please give your valuable advice.
Thanks,
Narayana Swamy