Take good care of elephants in temples, HC appeals to HR&CE department officials

Judges call for a status report from the Forest Department by June 8

The Madras High Court on Tuesday made a fervent appeal to the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department to ensure that the elephants held in captivity by various temples across the State are treated in a humane and dignified manner, provided with sufficient food, water and shelter from the heat and not otherwise beaten or mistreated in any manner or form.

Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy also called for a status report from the Forest Department by June 8 listing out the measures taken by it to implement the Tamil Nadu Captive Elephant (Management and Maintenance) Rules of 2001, framed under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The interim direction was issued on a public interest litigation petition filed by activist Rangarajan Narasimhan of Srirangam.

The litigant complained about alleged ill treatment meted out to the pachyderms in temples and claimed that two female elephants Aandal and Lakshmi in the Sriranganathaswamy Temple were suffering without even a regular mahout. On the other hand, Special Government Pleader (forests) S.V. Vijay Prashanth refuted the allegation and contended that the elephants were being taken care of properly.

He also said that the Forest Department had recently submitted a report, after consulting elephant experts, to the government on measures to be taken for the wellbeing of elephants in captivity. Faced with contrary claims, the judges said that there was lot of room for improvement in the way the temple elephants were treated. For the present, the court appealed to the officials to take good care of the animals.

Further, allowing a request made by senior counsel M.S. Krishnan to permit an association of elephant owners to get impleaded in the case, the judges observed: “It is hoped that the number of members of such association would dwindle and wither away in the near future. Till such time that the association exists, it may look into how the elephants at the temples may be treated and indicate other aspects of the matter.”