The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday took suo motu cognisance of a news report published by The Hindu on the difficulties faced by elephants in crossing roads and ghats in The Nilgiris district due to road expansion works.
The court took cognisance of The Hindu news report, ‘Elephants struggle to cross road where expansion work is under way’, published on March 18, which stated that a herd of elephants struggled to cross a National Highway due to road expansion work. The article also highlighted the difficulties faced by the elephants in climbing the ghat due to the construction of revetment walls.
After advocate T. Lajapathi Roy made a mention of the news article before a Division Bench of Justices R. Subramanian and N. Sathish Kumar, the judges agreed to take up the issue suo motu.
The court directed the State government to submit a status report and come out with a methodology to be adopted to create a safe passage for the elephants. The judges directed the matter to be placed before the Special Bench hearing cases related to environmental issues. The case was posted for hearing to March 25.
