Muttil tree felling case; Court returns forest department's chargesheet due to lack of essential documents

KALPETTA: The court has returned the chargesheet filed by the forest department in the Wayanad Muttil tree felling case. The action was taken after the court pointed that the required documents had not been submitted along with the chargesheet. The forest department submitted the chargesheet before the Sulthan Bathery Magistrate Court on September 17. Seven including the Augustine brothers, were named accused in the chargesheet. The chargesheet was filed five years after the case was registered. A total of 37 cases has been registered in connection with the Muttil tree felling.

The court also pointed that the chargesheet did not specify whether the trees had been felled from the forest land. There is no clarity on why it took so long to file the chargesheet. There is also no explanation as to why the lorry in which the teak logs were found had not been seized.

In the case registered by the Ambalamedu Police, Roji Augustine, Josekutty Augustine and Anto Augustine are accused numbers one to three respectively. The case is that timber illegally felled from the Meppadi forest range was sold to M M Aliyar of Karimugal by convincing him that they had a transit pass of the forest department. Aliyar claimed that he came to know that he had been deceived only after the forest department registered a case.

The accused had argued that a special pass was not required to transport the timber and, therefore, the charge of cheating could not stand. The court had observed that the trees had been felled in violation of the law and that, prima facie, cheating had occurred in the sale of the timber.