The plea claims utilization of fireballs in West Bengal regardless of the court docket’s path to cease utilizing them.(File)
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court docket on Thursday agreed to listen to a plea in search of initiation of contempt proceedings for alleged violation of its orders asking the state authorities to desist from utilizing fireballs to drive elephants that come close to human habitation or croplands.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Okay V Viswanthan issued discover to West Bengal’s Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Drive) in search of his response to the plea and posted the matter for listening to after 4 weeks.
The petitioner, Prerna Singh Bindra, has referred to the orders handed by the apex court docket on August 1, 2018 and December 4, 2018, whereas listening to a plea which highlighted the merciless strategies utilized in some states to handle human-wildlife battle and particularly human-elephant battle.
The contempt plea, filed via advocate Shibani Ghosh, mentioned the highest court docket in its August 1, 2018 order had mentioned wherever the spikes or fireballs are used for driving elephants, remedial steps must be taken by involved states for eradicating spikes and desisting from utilizing fireballs.
“By means of these two orders, this court docket had issued clear instructions to the State of West Bengal to desist from utilizing fireballs to drive or chase elephants that come close to human habitation and croplands,” the plea mentioned.
It mentioned regardless of a transparent path from the apex court docket to desist from utilizing fireballs or ‘mashaals’ besides as an emergency measure that too for a restricted interval, the apply of utilizing such “merciless and barbaric methods” to scare and chase elephants continues in West Bengal.
The plea referred to an August 15, 2024 incident when a gaggle of elephants entered a colony on the outskirts of Jhargram city in West Bengal. It mentioned a tusker from the group had allegedly killed an aged resident.
“The West Bengal forest division officers reached the spot together with ‘Hulla’ events – teams of native youth armed with iron rods/spikes and burning ‘mashaals’ to chase the elephants away,” it mentioned.
The plea claimed that one alleged ‘Hulla’ social gathering member threw a ‘mashaal’ at a feminine elephant and the burning spike bought lodged onto her backbone and the animal collapsed quickly thereafter.
It referred to a different incident in April 2023 from Kalaikunda vary in Kharagpur division, Paschim Medinipur, the place a herd of elephants was noticed being chased by a ‘Hulla’ social gathering armed with fire-lit ‘mashaal’.
“The continued reliance by the respondent/alleged contemnor on ‘Hulla’ events that throw burning ‘mashaals’ at elephants as the first instrument for the administration of human-elephant conflicts quantities to contempt of this court docket’s orders and a breach of the state’s enterprise to hunt various means to mitigate the battle state of affairs or cut back adverse interactions,” the plea mentioned.
It mentioned the usage of ‘mashaals’, sharp steel rods, fireballs, inflammable objects and so on. as a technique to scare away elephants is extraordinarily merciless and barbaric and causes immense psychological trauma and bodily misery to the animal.
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