As a controversy rages about whether the Pataliputra cooperative housing society felled several trees before it obtained building permission, a journalist has asserted to an inquiry officer appointed by the Lokayukta that trees did indeed exist on the Andheri West plot. It is alleged that the society which has as members top bureaucrats, including chief secretary V. Ranganathan, has been built on a 5667 sq metre plot that once was covered with trees.