The Madras High Court on Monday said that the Forest department and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department officials can take a call on permitting motor vehicles inside the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR) for the devotees of Aadhi Karuvannarayar Bomma Deviyar temple to attend the three-day ‘Maasi Magam’ festival between February 23 and 25.
First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the interim order on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by T. Santhosh against the government officials’ decision to permit only 100 vehicles per day for the festival. The petitioner had contended that all others could not be expected to walk 20 km into the forest.
His counsel told the court that thousands of members belonging to the Uppiliya Naicker community gather in the temple every year. Therefore, instead of fixing a cap of 100 vehicles per day, the officials could permit 100 vehicles to enter the forest at a time and allow the next batch of vehicles after the return of those vehicles so that no one would have to walk a long distance, he said.
Harm to ecology
The counsel contended that making hundreds of people walk for such a long distance inside the tiger reserve might cause more harm to the ecology than regulating their movement in vehicles. After hearing him, the judges pointed out that they had already passed certain interim orders, in another PIL petition, last month permitting the conduct of the festival inside the reserve forest this year.
“A balance will have to be struck in maintaining the ecology in the forest and the devotees’ right to attend the festival. Considering all this, we had passed the previous order. It is for the HR&CE and forest departments to consider the viability and feasibility of the present petitioner’s request... It is needless to state that all possible steps for the safety of the devotees should be undertaken,” the Bench wrote.
Since they had called for a status report after the conduct of the festival and ordered the listing of the previous PIL petition on March 15, the judges directed the Registry to list the present case too on the same day. Earlier, during arguments, the petitioner’s counsel told the court that the devotees had been attending the temple festival since pre-Independence days and even before the area was declared a tiger reserve.
Justice Chakravarthy intervened to say: “During the pre-Independence days we were living peacefully with nature. We went to the temples in a bullock cart. We did not use plastic bottles to carry water. We did not use shampoo in plastic sachets while taking a dip in the rivers. We are doing all this now and therefore the State is stepping in to impose restrictions on entry and exit into forest area.”
