Kerala High Court Issues Contempt Notice To Devaswom Officer Over Violation Of Guidelines Regulating Elephant Parading At Temple Festivals

The Division Bench of Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Gopinath P. observed that admittedly, violations occurred on December 02 while parading Elephants at the Thripunithura Sree Poornathrayeesa Temple festival from November 29 to December 06.

The Court noted that 15 Elephants were thrust into a small space and its guidelines requiring a 3-meter distance between two Elephants was violated.

Last week, the Court had directed the official to file an affidavit explaining the conduct. The official submitted that regulations had been violated only on one day because of non-cooperation by the devotees. The affidavit stated that the devotees accused the Devaswom official of violating the rituals of the Temple.

Finding this explanation "unsatisfactory", the Court orally observed,

"Will you disobey Court's mandate if some devotees say something? Sorry, we cannot accept this affidavit, we will initiate contempt for absolutely disregarding our directions. State will become lawless. That cannot happen. How dare you play with lives of people...zero tolerance for this kind of behaviour."

It said prima facie, the Devaswom officer had committed an act of Civil Contempt.

The Court thus directed its Registry to issue notice to the Devaswom officer under the Contempt of Courts Act.

“We therefore direct the registry to formally register a contempt of courts case and to issue a notice to the deponent Devaswom officer fortwith so that the deponent Devaswom officer can respond to the same on or before January 09, 2025,” it directed.

During the hearing, the Court was also apprised about the poor state of a 65 year old Elephant. This prompted the bench to orally remark, "Elephants are symbol of God Ganapathi, and is this how you treat Lord Ganapathi…why are we so cruel…"

It directed the Amicus curiae to enquire with the Experts about determination of elephants' age, etc. and apprise the Court on the next date. "We need some rules in place if captive Elephants are to be paraded- existing captive elephants must be taken care of, there should be places to rehabilitate Elephants that are unfit to parade, who will rehabilitate these Elephants and where does the fund comes from," it said and posted the matter to December 19 (Thursday).

Case Number: WP(C) 31520/2024 & Connected Cases

Case Title: In Re Captive Elephants v Union of India Connected Cases