Plea filed in Supreme Court seeking, CBI or SIT to investigate the recent death of pregnant Elephant in Kerala.

Plea has been filed in Supreme Court of India on 6th June 2020 by Adv A.B Kaushik, seeking the court to examine the incident of death of a pregnant Elephant which took place recently, under CBI or SIT. 

The plea was understood with the help of Dr. Sanjeetha Pohkarel, an elephant biologist. Such that several practices meant to poach such gigantic Elephants were recognized.

The plea included the information that until 2019 around 429 elephants were poached since 2008 out of which 136 killings have been reported from Kerala and 642 poachers were arrested. An RTI application was filed by Adv. Ranjan Tomar way back in 2019 towards the Wild life Crime Control Bureau,  which enlightened us with this data.

The background, Media broadcasted the death of the elephant on 5th June 2020. It was first spotted by villagers in Palakkad District on 25th May 2020 and was reported to the Forest officers on the same day.

Also, some local wildlife activists and media of Kerala disclosed that around 17 elephants had been killed in that same area last year.

 In addition to this, claims are made that a similar incident took place in April 2020 that killed 1 elephant in same area. 

The Indian elephants are protected under the wild life Act, 1972. List 1, item number 12-B in the name of ‘Indian Elephant (Elephas maximus)’.

By Yash .Y Naik of VM Salgaocar College of Law, Goa