On March 30, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court comprised of Justices AK Jayashankaran Nambiar and Gopinath P had said that capturing the elephant would do more harm than good had appointed a Committee of Experts (CoE) to advise the court on the nature and habits of the wild elephant.
The Court said that it was aware of the instances of cruelty to captive elephants in the State, and did not want to add more elephants to the long list of hapless ‘converts’ as it violated the fundamental duty under Article 51A (g) of our Constitution to protect wildlife and have compassion for living creatures.
The bench said that the objective should be to strike a balance between the conflicting interests of the residents of the localities concerned and the elephants in the area.
Hence, it asked CoE to examine whether there are alternative options to prevent the elephant in question from causing disturbances in human settlements.
Source: Barandbench
