What happened
The Lammual Master Plan — branded as Aizawl's 'Early Bird Project' — required widening the 1 km stretch from Bazar Bungkawn to Treasury Square to 14 metres. Widening that stretch required removing the trees standing in the way, of which the Mizoram PWD identified 174 of about 400 as expendable, including specimens believed to be more than a hundred years old and at least one reportedly dating to 1850. The project was inaugurated by Chief Minister Lalduhoma at Heritage Court on March 17. Public protests followed; environmental activist Saizampuii Sailo, on behalf of the Centre for Environment and Social Justice, filed a PIL — by which point activists say more than 100 trees had already been felled. On April 20, a division bench of Justices Michael Zothankhuma and Kaushik Goswami ordered all further felling stopped until further orders, and asked the state — represented by Additional Advocate General P Bhattacharyya — for a detailed explanation of why structures dating to 1897 and trees dating to the 1850s needed to be removed in order to install an amphitheatre and a parking lot. Urban Development Minister K Sapdanga's office has not, as of the next hearing date of May 18, identified what the project would beautify if the trees that made the site beautiful are gone.