A Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant declined on Monday to provide any leeway for commercial activity in the ecologically fragile Segur plateau in the Nilgiris.
The area is an elephant corridor situated in the Masinagudi area near the Mudumalai National Park near the plateau.
Resort owners and others, represented by senior advocates Salman Khursheed, Shoeb Alam and P.B. Suresh, had approached the Supreme Court against a Madras High Court order in 2025, which had confirmed a Committee’s finding that their purchase of land in the plateau area was null and void.
The court, while banning commercial activity, empathised with people who had lost their livelihood.
Senior advocate Haripriya Padmanabhan, Additional Advocate General for Tamil Nadu, said the State was not allowing any commercial activity or encroachments in the area.
The Tamil Nadu law officer said the State was treating with sensitivity a proposed acquisition of land where Adivasis and forest-dwellers were living.
“The guidelines directed by the High Court to be adopted for protecting the elephant corridor need to be given effect. However, the State shall be at liberty to identify the land which is worth acquiring and is not owned/possessed by tribal communities. In case the State faces any difficulty in the acquisition process, it shall be at liberty to approach the High Court for suitable modification,” the court observed in an order.
In October 2020, the apex court had upheld a July 2011 judgment of the Madras High Court, which declared that the Tamil Nadu government was fully empowered to notify the ‘Elephant Corridor’ in the ecologically fragile Nilgiris district.
The apex court judgment had allowed the formation of a committee led by a retired high court judge and two other persons to hear the individual objections of resort owners and private land owners within the corridor space under the Tamil Nadu Preservation of Private Forest (TNPPF) Act, 1949.
“The elephant is a gentleman and man should give way for the elephant… Elephants are big, powerful but fragile. We are dealing with a fragile eco-system,” the Supreme Court had said during the court hearings.
Published – July 20, 2026 10:37 pm IST
