New Delhi: The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment, ordered a fine of ₹1 lakh per tree on a man who illegally cut 454 trees in the protected Mathura-Vrindavan area.

The Apex court observed that cutting 454 trees was a brazen act and said: “Felling a large number of trees is worse than killing a human”. The bench of Justices Abhay Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan stated that it would take at least 100 years for these trees to grow back.

The bench fined ₹1 lakh to Shiv Shankar Agarwal, the man responsible for cutting trees at Dalmia Farms in Mathura-Vrindavan.

During the hearing, the court also revoked its December 2019 order, which had allowed cutting of trees on non-forest lands within the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ). The defence argued that the offender admitted his mistake and pleaded for a reduction in the fine, but the court rejected the request, emphasising that tree-cutting is a serious environmental offence.