Madras High Court Sets Aside State Wide Ban Temples Elephants

The Madras High Court has set aside an order mandating a blanket statewide ban on temples acquiring or keeping elephants and observed that the “conservation direction” aimed at stopping any fresh depletion of the wild elephant population, whereas an elephant “genuinely cannot survive in the wild” and requires treatment.

A bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan was hearing a plea filed by a temple because, while hearing an unrelated case filed by a man for transfer of ownership of an elephant, the high court had imposed a ban on the temples in Tamil Nadu on acquiring elephants.

The bench pointed out that when the direction was passed, “no temple and no representative of temples” were heard on the issue. “A plain reading of the aforesaid direction makes it ostensibly clear that the same, in substance, is a conservation direction, aimed at stopping any fresh depletion of the wild elephant population, save where an elephant genuinely cannot survive in the wild and needs to be taken in for treatment,” the court stated on September 2.

Referring to the direction passed on February 27, 2023, the court noted that it stated that “no private person may capture an elephant” and that it protected the elephants already living in captivity.

A man had purchased a female elephant named ‘Lalitha’ in 2000 and applied to wildlife authorities for ownership transfer but his request was rejected. He appealed against the rejection, but the high court upheld the previous ruling on September 10, 2020. The man, however, was allowed thew elephant’s custody.

Lalitha fell in December 2022 and then later in January and February 2023, The single judge who was hearing the case paid her a visit following which the animal’s custody was handed over to the District Forest Officer and the District Level Captive Elephant Welfare Committee for treatment the next day. The court also ordered a state-wide inspection of temples and all privately-owned elephants by the Environment and Forest Department.

The court had also ordered the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department to “issue instructions to every temple in Tamil Nadu not to acquire any elephant hereafter”. Against the direction of the court, a temple filed a case claiming that it was directly affected by the order of the court as it was not a party to the earlier case and maintained a female elephant who took part in the temple’s religious ceremonies.

Senior advocate AK Sriram, appearing for the temple, argued that no temple in the state was joined as a party to the case, and no direction was sought against them, but still directions were passed against them without giving them any notice or an opportunity of being heard. The counsel further urged that the Wildlife (Protection) Act specifically allowed donation of an elephant to a temple. According to the counsel, the order did not “touch donation of an already captive elephant to a temple, and it does not direct removal of elephants already with temples”.

The high court observed that in the previous case, “there was no prayer seeking a direction to the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department to instruct every temple in Tamil Nadu not to acquire an elephant, or a direction contemplating removal of elephants already with temples across the State”.

The high court observed that nothing in the order spoke about “donation of an already-captive elephant from one custodian to a temple. Nothing in it directs temples to stop receiving elephants that are gifted to them,” and “nothing in it contemplates shifting elephants already settled in temples to rehabilitation camps”.

The court affirmed all the directions that were issued regarding the female elephant but held that the directions about the “State-wide pronouncement affecting every temple and every privately held elephant in Tamil Nadu” could not be sustained and set the order aside.