Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam moves Madras High Court to take back its elephants

The Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, founded by Adi Sankara, has approached the Madras High Court for taking back three of its female elephants Sandhya, 50, Indu, 30, and Jayanti, 14, from the Tamil Nadu Forest Department’s elephant rescue and rehabilitation centre at M.R. Palayam in Tiruchi.

Justice V. Lakshminarayanan on Monday directed the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests-cum-Chief Wildlife Warden (PCCF-cum-CWC) to depute a team of officials for inspecting a 2.94-acre facility earmarked by the Mutt at Konerikuppam in Kancheepuram district for housing the pachyderms.

The judge made it clear that the same team, which had inspected the facility on December 9, may be deputed for the inspection again, so that it would be in a better position to find out if the deficiencies found during the first inspection had been rectified by the Mutt or not.

He directed Special Government Pleader (Forests) T. Seenivasan to explain by January 6 as to whether the M.R. Palayam elephant rescue and rehabilitation centre had concrete sheds to house the elephants as required under Rule 5(2) of the Tamil Nadu Captive Elephants (Management and Maintenance) Rules, 2011.

The direction was issued after advocate V.R. Shanmuganathan, representing the petitioner Mutt, contended that none of the elephant rescue centres run by the forest department had concrete sheds for the elephants but the officials were insisting upon private owners alone to establish such sheds.

The counsel told the court that the Mutt had established two well-ventilated metal roof sheds for housing all three elephants, besides creating a 20 X 30 X 6 ft pond for them to take bath. Three rooms had been made available at the site for preparing food and medicines for the gentle giants.

He informed the judge that the Mutt owns about 14.08 acres of grasslands in the nearby areas from where the daily requirement of 200 kg of fodder for each of the three elephants could be supplied easily. He said the Mutt had identified three mahouts and kavadies who were ready to join duty.

Mr. Shanmugasundaram said the Mutt had handed over the three animals for safe custody at a private institution at Marakkanam in Villupuram district in 2016. However, after activist S. Muralidharan filed a public interest litigation petition in 2019, they were translocated to the M.R. Palayam camp.

Now, that the mutt had created a 2.94-acre facility to take care of the three elephants which were an essential part of the temple rituals, it insisted on renewing its licences/ownership certificates and translocating the pachyderms from the M.R. Palayam camp to the Konerikuppam facility.