Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh has granted a stay on a plea to restrain LESCO from laying transmission lines for supplying power to the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) Project.The chief justice was hearing a petition against the cutting of trees along Canal Road. Justice Sheikh also summoned the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) director-general on February 24 over not submitting a reply despite a court notice.As the proceedings commenced, Chief Justice Sheikh expressed his displeasure over cutting of trees despite the court’s stay order.When a PHA representative informed the court that a payment had been made for felling of the trees, the judge remarked that money was not a substitute of plants.He asked why underground wires were not laid when the authorities designed the development projects. The whole world preferred to lay the wires underground, the CJ remarked.The chief justice asked how many trees the PHA had cut. The authority’s representative said the forest department had cut the trees.“Who allowed your department to cut the trees?” the LHC CJ asked the representative of the forest department.Justice Sheikh also directed the additional advocate general to submit a detailed reply, observing that the reply submitted earlier was not concerned with the subject. The additional advocate general was asked to submit the detailed reply along with an affidavit.“The PHA would have to answer if any tree is cut in Lahore,” the CJ remarked.The petitioner’s counsel said the Canal Road up to Thokar Niaz Baig was given the status of a park in 2013 and no tree along it could be cut under the law. He said high-voltage transmission lines caused diseases but the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) was cutting trees for laying them.The counsel argued that in whole world high-voltage power lines were laid underground. He requested that an order also be issued against those involved in cutting trees in violation of court orders.The LESCO counsel requested the court not to grant stay against laying the transmission lines. The counsel said the lines were the backbone of the OLMT Project.However, the court did not accept the request. The chief justice said the stay might be lifted after the reply was submitted.Published in The Express Tribune, February 18, 2020.