New Delhi, Jun 3 (IANS): Expressing its anguish over the damages that happened to the green cover in the national capital during the recent thunderstorm, the Delhi High Court on Thursday held the officials accountable for the lack of care which led to concretisation around trees that weakened their roots and caused heavy damage.

"The city has witnessed extensive devastation to its vegetation caused by a thunderstorm. Majestic old trees have succumbed to the strong winds primarily because the roots had weakened, courtesy largely to the agencies owning the roads or permitting concretisation of the earth around it and indeed, callously disregarding care, and upkeep of the tree," Justice Najmi Waziri observed while dealing a plea related to the loss of vegetation in the city.

The court further held accountable of the officials concerned for the larger loss.

"Because of their callousness, the city has lost hundreds of trees in the heart of the city," he said.

He also came down heavily on the authorities, saying the Public Works Department came and actually encroached upto the neck of these trees.

In the last hearing also, he had stressed the importance of the trees.

"In this capital city with its ever-burgeoning populating, the cacophony of voices and rampant commercialisation of every other street - robbing the residents of the familiar ambience of their residential neighbourhood, the ever-increasing motor-vehicular traffic, the choking air pollution and the ever-creeping concretisation, trees hold out as welcome and assuring living entities of hope, sanity, environmental redemption and even companionship. The more solitary the tree, the greater its significance," he had said.