Madras High Court Dismisses PIL Seeking Expert Committee For Monitoring Rogue Elephant Arikomban

The bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice V Lakshminarayanan took note of the submission made by the authorities that all necessary steps were being taken to monitor the movements and health of the elephant at Periyar Tiger Reserve and dismissed the petition.

The petitioner, Praveen Kumar from Kerala had filed the plea to forbear the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and the Chief Conservator of Forest and Field Director from using tranquilizers to prevent Arikomban from entering into agricultural lands and to monitor his activities with the help of a satellite radio collar. The petition also called for the appointment of an expert team including Adivasis to monitor his movements and to pave pathways into deep forests

Kumar said the 35 years old Elephant is an innocent creature who had not caused damage to the life of any person but had damaged some shops and houses that were built on his own forest lands and elephant pathways. Kumar submitted that the Elephant was born and brought up in Chinnakanal forest area and presently the area was being encroached on for resorts, homestays, hotels, tent tourism, and cultivation which ended up in food and water scarcity for the elephant.

Kumar submitted that due to the transformation of the Chinnakanal area into a town, the animal-human conflict was increasing daily which is the reason why the Kerala Government had decided to capture and translocate Arikomban. He added that the Kerala government had used tranquilizers on the Elephant in 2013 and 2017 also without considering severe side effects including reduction of life span, damage to internal organs, and reduction of the strength of using tranquilizers.

He further submitted that during the earlier months this year, multiple tranquilizers have been used on the elephant during its translocation which has transformed Arikomban into a skinny structure and he cannot survive any further doses of tranquilizers.

He also submitted that the upper Kodayar area, where Arikomban is currently located does not have enough natural food items and is very dry without grasslands or vegetation and thus the Elephant frequently tries to come out of the forest. He added that the Tamil Nadu forest department is not monitoring his activities properly and has also failed to monitor the elephant by using a radio collar fixed with it which prompted him to file the present plea seeking directions.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 314

Case Title: Praveen Kumar v The Additional Chief Secretary and Others

Case No: WP (MD) 24445 of 2023