Supreme Court Dismisses Kerala's Petition On 'Rice' Elephant Relocation

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain the appeal of the Kerala government against the high court order asking it to translocate a rogue elephant 'Arikkomban' to the Parambikulam tiger reserve in Palakkad district of the state.

The state government wanted the elephant to be sent to a training centre, noting it had killed seven people and destroyed several homes, but the top court observed that the Kerala High Court had given a "reasoned" order based on the view of the expert committee.

Earlier in the day, a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala took note of the urgent mentioning of the appeal by the state government and decided to hear it on Monday itself.

After hearing the matter for some time, the bench dismissed the appeal of the state government saying the recommendation to relocate the elephant was made by a committee of experts.

“You (state) have an expert committee and experts themselves have said that the elephant has to be relocated. It is a reasoned order. We will not interfere,” the bench ordered.

"If the expert panel has suggested something, the state government cannot then go over and above it," the bench said.

The bench decided to hear the plea urgently after senior advocate Jayant Muthuraj, appearing for the state government, said that the high court has given one week to relocate the elephant to an alternative space, failing which it has to be shifted to Parambikulam.

The senior lawyer said that the elephant has killed seven people so far and destroyed several homes and therefore, the state had decided to relocate it to its elephant training centre to tame it.

However, the high court stopped that move and directed it to be released to an alternate forest.

On April 12, the Kerala High Court refused to review its decision to translocate the rice-eating tusker to the Parambikulam tiger reserve.

The high court on April 5 ordered the relocation of the tusker to the tiger reserve as suggested by the CoE appointed by it to decide whether to relocate or keep in captivity the bull elephant.

During the hearing of the review plea before the high court, the state government was of the view that the tusker should be captured and kept in captivity.

While disagreeing with the state's stand, the high court had said that if the state government had an alternate place in mind for translocating the tusker, it can do so.

The review petition was moved by CPI(M) MLA from Nenmara assembly constituency, K Babu. He had contended that the High Court-appointed Committee of Experts (CoE) suggested Parambikulam for translocating the tusker without assessing its impact on local residents.

The directions of the court came on a PIL by two animal rights groups -- People for Animals (PFA), Trivandrum Chapter and the Walking Eye Foundation for Animal Advocacy.

However, local residents close to the tiger reserve have been protesting against the decision.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)