Kalpatta: 84,600-page chargesheet submitted in court in Muttil tree cutting case. The charge sheet was filed in Batheri First Class Magistrate Court.
There are twelve accused in the case including Roji Augustin, Anto Augustin and Josutty Augustin Augustin. The charge sheet includes 420 witnesses and 900 documents. The case is that 105 trees were cut down under the guise of a government order.
The main offenses are destruction of public property, forgery, fraud and conspiracy. Apart from the Augustine brothers, their drivers Bineesh, Chacko, Suresh, Abubakar, Ravi, KK Aji who was the then village officer of Nassar, and special village officer KK Sindhu are the other accused.
The felling of the trees was done in the guise of a government order dated October 24, 2020 by the Principal Secretary, Revenue, which allowed owners to cut down trees other than self-sprouting sandalwood planted by owners in deed land after the Land Reforms Act. A DNA test conducted at the Forest Research Center at Peachy, Thrissur found that the trees were cut down from Muttil South Village centuries before the land was allotted under the Kerala Land Registry Act of 1964.
