Chennai: The Madras High Court here on Friday dismissed Kochi resident Rebecca Joseph's plea seeking a directive to the Tamil Nadu Government for translocating wild tusker Arikomban back to Kerala.
The Forest Bench of the High Court has observed that there is no need to translocate the elephant from the forest in Tamil Nadu.
Earlier, the Madurai Bench of the court had forwarded the petition to its Forest Bench. While considering the plea, the Forest Bench noted that Arikomban has enough food and water in the forest where it was released by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. It also pointed out that the tusker got adapted to its new environment.
Hence, the court asserted that there is no need to revoke the Tamil Nadu Government's action to translocate the elephant.
On June 5, a special task force of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department relocated the tusker to the Kodayar forest range inside Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR), near Tirunelveli. The forest officials had provided necessary medical care to the elephant before releasing it into the forest.
Arikomban which triggered panic in Chinnakanal area of Kerala's Idukki district was translocated to the Periyar Tiger Reserve on April 29. But leaving the forest departments in Kerala and Tamil Nadu on their toes it strayed into human settlements in the neighbouring Theni district forcing Tamil Nadu to launch a mission to capture the elephant.
KMTR is situated over 60km from Tirunelveli and the point of release is understood to be in the Manjolai Division, several kilometres inside the reserve forest.
KMTR is the second-largest protected area in Tamil Nadu that is situated in the southern Western Ghats along the districts of Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari.
According to reports, the Tamil Nadu Forest Department believes the chances of Arikomban returning to human settlements are slim considering the vastness of its new abode.
The last signal was received from Arikomban's radio collar at 9 am on Thursday. It indicated the rice-loving tusker was in the vicinity of the Kodayar Dam, about 200 to 300 metres away from the reservoir. The location is just 15 km from Tamil Nadu's border with Kerala.
