Time has come to stop keeping elephants in captivity, observes Madras High Court - Times Now

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A temple elephant in Kanchipuram&nbsp

Key Highlights

Tamil Nadu CJ suggests to keep the captive elephants in natural enclosure and bring them to temple only during festivals.

MHC CJ also instructs the forest department to get expert advice from the experts and ensure ethical treatment of the elephants in coordination with the HR & CE department

Chennai: A petition regarding the welfare of the elephants in captive came up before the MHC CJ Sanjib Banerjee and Audikesavalu for hearing today.

The principal conservator of forest through his affidavit informed the court that there are 30 elephants under captivity in Tamil Nadu and all the elephants are given appropriate care.

Counsel who appeared for the petitioner Rangarajan Narasimhan objected to the submission made by the forest department said that there are 34 elephants in captivity and most of the elephants don't have mahouts to give appropriate care to the elephants. He also requested a special enclosure for the elephant maintained in the Srirangam temple.

After hearing the submission, the MHC CJ Sanjib Banerjee recollected an incident on how a scared horse was running parallel to his car in the Marina beach road and how he wasn't sure at that point of time whether to get down and help the horse or not.

Then the CJ Sanjib Banerjee observed that the time has come to stop keeping the elephants in captivity and suggested instead of keeping the elephants inside the 2000 sq.ft concrete enclosure, it can be maintained at a natural enclosure and bring the elephants to the temples only during the festivals.

He also instructed the forest officials to get advice from the experts about the day to day maintanence of the elephants in captivity and ensure ethical treatment by coordinating with the HR &CE department and adjourned the petition for three weeks.

The bench also hinted that they may hold a hearing in open where the elephants are kept to find out their living conditions.